our upbeat thought for the day

hours and hours and hours and hours of endless fun

here's a great little site that gives you the chance to find out how many of you there are in the old blighty.

click here and away you go

you know you want to.

we had a go, as you would. all very interesting. we almost couldn't stop.

there are 1768 michael harris. 180 ian bates. 2 darren mower. and 1 geraldine sherriff.

now that sounds like a terrace chant!

the uk's digital addiction

a recent ofcom report highlighted the ever-growing importance of the internet and mobile phone on us Brits.

the facts are impressively impressive. for instance, last year collectively we spent 99 billion minutes yakking on our mobiles.

here's another one for you: the average brit spends 727 hours a year surfing the net - that's up 21% from the previous year.

our appetite for digital communication bounds on at an rapid rate. the wind is in our digital sails. basically, we can't get enough of it - tippy tapping on our keyboards and phone pads like frenzied fools.

only the yanks spend more time on the net, and only the italians spend more time on their mobiles.

the stats keep on coming: did you know there are 121 mobiles for every 100 people in the UK? that's impressive penetration (as a foul-mothed celebrity chef might say).

the fact is, digital is now the core way that many individuals connect with others. like the atom bomb, it can't be uninvented. so, to all you digital doubters out there, we have a message: it's time to get with it or get left behind.

the best throw-in ever

without question. without compare.

hardcore, you know the score

two status quo entries in the one day.

it's all doom and gloom these days. hand-wringing, melancholy and undiluted pessimism.

but not round here. we're beaming like cheshire cats. it's hardly surprising when we have access to stuff like this.

the ultimate mash-up featuring naff teutonic techno and a tragically-long-in-the-tooth gb rock institution. this makes us laugh on so many levels it's untrue.

H.P.Baxxter, Scooter's man on the mike, sounds not dissimilar to robbie rotten off lazytown.

as for quo, well, what would graham tumber say? blimey, it's a long way from ma kelly's greasy spoon.

whatever you want (well, we dont want this.)

we're told it reached 163 in the singles chart.

you can count on facebook

ever wondered how many people in the uk like something? i have. how many other 25 year olds love ultravox? did anyone actually enjoy 'bring it on'? to us marketers the questions are even more pertinent; for example a up-and-coming online fashion retailer may want to know exactly how many females aged 18-25 would consider themselves interested in fashion?

in the past, these questions have been answered by expensive lifestyle surveys and 3rd party data, but now a new opportunity has arisen for the savvy marketer; facebook.

facebook allows advertisers to pick exactly who their ads are targeted at. selling emo t-shirts? select anyone age 18-22 with 'my chemical romance' in their profile. selling travel insurance? select anyone over 18 with 'travel' in their interests. the possibilities are endless and it's a powerful tool for social network marketers, but whats in it for us?

well, when setting up the ads, facebook convieniently tells you how many people will see your ad. you want a count? just click on the 'advertising' link at the bottom of any facebook page and set-up a fake ad. it takes 30 seconds and allows you access to instant counts on the whole facebook base.


just extrapolate this out to the uk population, round down for safety, and you've got your count. whole thing done in a minute. fair enough it's not as accurate as a lifestyle survey, but it certainly gives you a pointer in the right direction.

so, for all of you who did enjoy 'bring it on', you'd better hope the count is high; when the revolution comes, you're first against the wall.

graham tumber: we salute you

sir. you are an odd-job builder. yet you convinced dover city council you were francis rossi of status quo. you looked like nothing like him. yet they fell for your audacious reworking of the truth for a full year and lavished you with VIP treatment. sweet!

we particularly liked your story about applying a stick-on ponytail before stepping on stage.

you never played that gig with sir paul mccartney, did you? we don't mind. it probably would have been a fake macca anyway.

they say you can't play guitar. they you you can't sing. they say you have no musical talent whatsoever. you'll go down a storm on x factor.

a loaf short of a sandwich

in the last couple of days, we've noticed a series of strips ads on the back of the metro from lloyds tsb. they offer handy hints suggests on how to save big bucks in these tough times.

these include such priceless gems as make your own sandwiches before you go to work and wash your car at home. genius!

the ads point you to a savvy savings website. here you can pick up hundreds of other top tips. all very useful.

but hang on. lloyds tsb? savvy savings? what's going on here? didn't they take a £600 million hit on all this sub-prime and credit crunch malarkey? and now they're extols the virtues of sandwich paste and chamois leathers. bizarre.

we just hope they're taking their own advice in their extravagant wood-panelled boardroom.

"what's in yours today, carruthers?"

"cheese and pickle, old boy. what about you, barrington-smyth?"

"oh, the filipino maid has rustled me up some delightful spam sandwiches."

weird times...

the lego catwalk

JCDC Versus LEGO from Four H on Vimeo.

we're big fans of the lego, and we also really love the lego games on the wii: stars wars, indiana jones and batman. so imagine how happy we were when were introduced to this sweet fusion between our favourite power bricks and fashion. how very now, darling!

where u @?

can this really be true? apparently, the ubiquitous @ email symbol has different names depending on where one resides in the world. this being so, here are a few examples to whet your whistle:

monkey's tail (south africa)

snail (france)

cinnamon twirl (sweden)

ear muff (iceland)

maggot (hungary)

little dog (russia)

strudel (israel)

bjork dot gudmunsdottir earmuff hotmail dot is

nelson underscore mandela monkey's tail gmail dot za

surely not! can anyone shed light on this?

king ryan

entire creative club heartily recommends the fab lars and the real girl.

is ryan gosling the world's best film actor? possibly. the notebook, half nelson and now this. not bad at all.

lovin' it, hatin' it!

on these dark, dank autumnal night, nothing beats a spot of wii play. mario karts, super mario galaxy, super smash bros brawl - good, clean, laugh-out-loud family fun.

but please, nintendo, we implore you, take off those TV ads with c-plebs playing the wii in their bad-taste mansions. the redknapps, girls aloud - we can't take it anymore. our 'arry has even crept onto adshels. we thought it was a halloween campaign to scare the kids?

why can't you use ordinary families to showcase your fabulous games console? more celebrity emptiness, we guess.

by the way, has anyone noticed the uncanny resemblance of the tottenham gaffer with toad of toad hall?

PC world?

Bomber Harris writes:

"a mate of mine, who is a civil servant, was recently reprimanded for using the phrase 'brainstorming' during the meeting. his superior was concerned that this would be offensive to anybody who suffers from epilepsy. apparently, the correct terminology is this instance should be 'mind mapping'! what I'd like to know is has anyone received a similar telling off for not being PC enough?"

japanese air force major commits career hari-kari

well, it made us chuckle. strange naked goings-on in the land of the rising sun.

the major's peculiar shopping habits

eating aldesko - a free lunch during the credit crunch

this will be the first and last time we recommend an article found within the daily mail, but it does have a certain degree of insight, albeit a shallow one.

it seems that the dreaded credit crunch is not all doom and gloom for businesses. it seems those flogging lunchboxes are cashing in big time as cash-strapped workers reach for the medium-sliced loaf and sunflower spread.

the lunchbox times

following on from this, we'd like to know your preferred choice of workplace sandwich? are you the cheese and pickle type? or crunchy peanut butter? or something more exotic?
go on, tell us your favourite filling!

obama wins, no thanks to darren

imagine our dazza's surprise a few days ago when he got an email inviting him to click his way to a url linked to the presidential race. being the inquisitive sort, he did.

what it revealed was a fantastic way to engage obama-minded voters who'd rather sit at home and eat cream donuts by the dozen. hats off to obama and his digital team!

see it in action down below:

voter apathy

stop looking at me

a certain video has been brought to our attention, revealing interesting facts about the way we communicate with each other. edward muzio of group harmonics has conducted some research into the problem of dealing with, well, problems, via email.

we've all experienced someone misinterpreting what we've said in an email, but muzio has concluded that only 7% of communication between us is based on the actual words. the remaining 93% is made up of visual cues (55%) and tone (38%), which are a little hard to convey through outlook.

it therefore seems wise to save your emails for saying nice things to people. bad news is better communicated face to face or on the phone, a useful piece of information to those of us who live and breathe through email.

(plus, they've got no record of what you've said then... you don't know me, right?)