Welcome to Optimism (twinned with Salford)

It's the Campaign Big Awards tonight. And I for one will not be attending. In fact, I won't even be looking at the results tomorrow morning. Because you know what? We don't do ruddy trophies and baubles in the North. We do all our work for our clients. Something you southern shandies just wouldn't understand...

Yeah, you heard. I did say "Southern Shandies". Because it's you London lot who mostly read this blog. Not my homies in Manchester. Because they're all busy working for their clients see, not dicking around on the internet, being all curious and forward-thinking like you lot. Oh no. We've got our noses to the grindstone, creating amazing work, for our amazing clients120% of the time. Day in. Day out, as Ian Curtis might say shortly before hanging himself.

Yo usee, what never fails to impress me about Manchester is that in a town where so many clients insist on writing their own ads, and most of the agencies allow them to do so, the fact that I make any money at all is a living, breathing testament to the city's steadfast commitment to creativity. The same creativity, lest we forget, that brought us Joy Division, The Smiths, Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses,er... Joy Division, The Smiths, Happy Mondays, and Morrissey! - as I'm sure Jon Robb, Terry Christian, and Peter Hook will be more than happy to remind you.

Day in. Day out.

And it's important we keep banging on about the legacy of ruddy Factory and Joy Division every time we come to celebrate or even mention Manchester's creative industries. Because currently, our advertising's just as fucking bleak and desperate as all the music we once listened to. And like Ian Curtis, there isn't a single solitary one of us who wouldn't work ourselves towards a horribly pointless death in the name of it.

So like I say. We don't need awards for what we do. We just trudge on till the bitter end. And every 5 years or so, we put all of our old work in a Peter Saville-designed coffee-book-boxset, and look back in a half-morbid, half self-congratulatory way at how, despite all the opportunities we were given, they all managed to end somewhat tragically.