Here at PrettyGreen, we’re a bunch of self-confessed carnivores, except Lisa who won’t even wear leather shoes (she was particularly concerned about leather pant wearing at the PRCA Awards), but after a summer of Meat Free Mondays campaigning to cut out meat one day of the week to help combat Global Warming we have to admit there is more to being veggie than meets the eye – there’s surely more to meal times than steak and chips? We’ve just found ourselves lacking the know-how to make inspired vegetarian meals.

So this Monday we’re marching down to The Kitchen’s Specialist Master Class in Japanese Vegetarian Cooking to expand our limited palettes and learn how to make creative and colourful meals without meat -Lisa, is only too eager to be inspired by Master Class host Shirley Booth while the rest of us can’t wait to see how to create a fabulous vegetarian feast, and save the planet.

Shirley’s not only knows a thing or two about vegetarian she’s also a leading authority on Japanese food, and author of the award-winning ‘Food of Japan’, sounds perfect.

This weekend, the Pretty Greeners were at the last stop of the Nando’s Xperimental Skate Jam at London’s BaySixty6. After the success of Leeds and Leicester last weekend in which over 500 kids turned up to learn how to skateboard and meet some of the UK’s top Pros, by 10 o’clock the streets of West London were lined with the skateboarding yoof ready to tear it up.

The BBC’s Mark Bright was at BaySixty6 the night before to do a special feature on the London News and our resident skateboarder Hamo took this opportunity to perform a trick in front of weather-girl Wendy Hurrell (and the whole of TV-watching London!) As you can see from the video, this turned out to be the weather’s biggest blunder since Michael Fish’s infamous 1987 broadcast….

Click on “Hamish it wasn’t me I wasn’t wearing that coloured top” (click again on the still, it’s right at the end when the Beeb do their weather round up from Nando’s Skate Jam, he’s the one under the weather map crawling on his hands and knees).

The event itself was a huge success and with hundreds of kids at the event and DJ Example pumping out the tunes, the atmosphere was absolutely electric. The Nando’s Peri-Peri BBQ chicken went down a storm as kids needed refueling for the afternoon of competitions, and we needed refueling to keep our energy levels on par with the youngsters – we’re not as young as we used to be!

To top off a high-energy day, Nando’s carried out the legendary throw-out from the half-pipe giving away limited-edition skateboard decks and t-shirts to ensure everyone went home with a smile whether they can kick-flip or not… we hadn’t quite mastered it, so we’re already signed up for next year!

But the times come for us to finally stand on our own two feet. So we’ve packed up our wares and moved round the corner to a great office on Percy Street. Our new “landlords” the digital Agency Underdog, so watch this space for some exciting collaborations moving forward.

Currently we’ve got lots of chairs, stationary, printers, etc etc, and we’re all ready to go. Feels just like the beginning of a new school term. Just a shame we haven’t got any desks yet.

If you fancy popping round for a coffee, or even a glass of something stronger. Drop on round, we’d love to see you.

Lovely Emma went and finally got engaged to Ben, which was great news, and made all our weekends when the text arrived. Not a surprise given that they’re so great together and he’d whisked her off to Paris for the weekend. It did mean that we had to go out and celebrate (rumour has it Ben slept with a bucket next to his bed which was probably caused by all those sambuca’s)

It’s also all change at the ranch, as we’ve outgrown our current space, and currently trying to find a new office (that’s easy to get to, central, local, close to clients, etc etc). We’ve found a couple we like, it’s now just about finalising the details, but if anyone’s looking for a some tenants, drop us a line.

A normally ‘on the ball’ Strings, uncharacteristically left his big bunch of keys (that’s house, office, alarm, bike, heart) in his bike lock this morning…um, on a lamp post on one of the busiest streets in London.

10 minutes into a planning session (the creation of a new brand platform but we can’t talk about it yet), the penny dropped, the last thing Strings expected were his keys to still be dangling from his bicycle. They weren’t (keep with me) but there was a lovely little note saying “to stop your bike being stolen we took something” along with a mystery phone number.

The mystery phone number belonged to a nice kind man called Jamie from M&C Saatchi who kindly delivered the keys back to Strings (and after closer inspection was also the boss of one of Pretty Green’s favourite friends, Jodie).

Jamie, you’ve restored our faith in human kindness, thank you.

Louis already counts the likes of Sainsbury’s & Waitrose amongst his customers and is now using his extensive contacts (he’s already met Gordon Brown!) and knowledge (he is the youngest ever Chocolatier to gain accreditation from the very prestigious Callebaut Academy of chocolate making) to launch a new range of yummy chocolate bars to raise awareness and monies for a cause extremely close to his heart.

The Biting Back Bar (as well as being de-li-cious) has been specifically created to be Palm Oil free. This is important because Palm Oil is found in loads of food, cosmetics and chocolate, but its production is responsible for deforestation, which in turn is endangering the lives of many animals. The first Biting Back Bar is focussed on the plight of the Orangutan (Dark Chocolate with Orange), with 10p from each bar donated to conservation charities to help reduce the threat. You can buy one (or ten) by clicking here . And remember, like crisps, from someone
elses bag, a chocolate bar that helps animals doesn’t count….

They had to turn their papers over and discuss in no more than 500 words “The D Word”, and how best to market documentaries. Interestingly the most heated debate being around whether or not Borat could be classed as a documentary.

Danny from Optimum, BJ Cunningham and Strings, after congratulating themselves on a fine session, hijacked Canadian Film Director Yung Chang’s cab to the station. They all followed the crowd jumped on a train on a very busy platform, and only to realise as it pulled out that it was heading to Bournemouth not London. Which was only made worse by the fact that Yung, hadn’t slept for 30 hours (after flying in from New Zealand), and needed to be at another screening of his film in London for 7.30pm. So, “is Basingstoke close to London”, was a difficult question for the trio to answer.

Apparently they all eventually arrived back in London, after spending a few hours mapping out some new documentary film scripts about supermen, orange juice, Spanish maids, Amsterdam, and a dark Panamanian bondage film with John and Anne Darwin called “without a paddle”.

We have been busy bees over the last couple of weeks with some really exciting briefs for some fantastic brands such as Red Bull and The Kitchen (basically like having a mini Michelin Star Chef in your apron pocket) and have been doing a number of other top secret projects we’re not allowed to talk about and talking to lots of other interesting people every day about some really inspiring projects (watch this space)…we like our jobs.