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Aah the Oscars, one of the most decadent and eagerly anticipated awards ceremonies of the season. Cue Ben 'Avatar' Stiller, a Dolce clad Neil Patrick Harris dancing his way on stage (sorry, who are you again?) and mistimed wisecracks courtesy of Steve Martin and co-host Alec Baldwin, confirming once and for all that as Team America insightfully noted all those months ago, the latter is nothing but a member of the F.A.G. Predictably, the British side failed to bring home the bacon on the statuette front, but garnered sartorial attention instead with red carpet appearances by Marchesa and breakout London born star Carey Mulligan's daring Prada ensemble. Indeed, Best Actress Sandra Bullock's pitch perfect speech following her well deserved win for The Blind Side was outdone only by her equally shiny silk frock; back-up presumably, since coming to the Oscars dressed as one is probably better than nothing. But the biggest congratulations of the night go of course to The Hurt Locker's Kathryn Bigelow, who proved not only that women over the age of 50 can give the upper arms of Jennifer Aniston a run for their money, but that girl power really can take you further than a Union Jack dress and a pair of platforms...

 
Nope, I'm not talking pig's bladders, studs or Ashley Cole's backwards progression from boy to toddler. I'm talking Visa's latest dabble with the beautiful game, because in the run up to the FIFA World Cup later this year Saatchi & Saatchi London have devised an unutterably beautiful - if not slightly unoriginal - TV campaign to demonstrate Visa's partnership with the upcoming event. Ending with the strap line 'Life flows better with Visa', the protagonist runs from his Western living room across the Eastern plains as he traverses the globe with his credit card and kicks a few footballs along the way, finally entering the stadium to score their winning goal. Much as it pains me to say that an ad with anything at all to do with football makes me want to mosh out in my living room, The Pixies' Isla de Encanta is the perfect soundtrack to a perfectly executed piece of advertising and my favourite of the year so far. Come on England!!