Media Week

Net curtains are twitching in leafy Muswell Hill, after Will Lewis, editor-in-chief and digital head of Telegraph Media Group, decided to invest his generous income from the Barclay brothers on expanding his property empire.

Lewis has bought up all three flats in a corner block across the road from his present home - Bitch presumes the previous owners had somewhere to go - and is now knocking through to create one palatial residence for his wife and children.

But as the scaffolding on the Edwardian pile climbs ever higher, Bitch hears the neighbours are looking on with “trepidation” - perhaps Lewis will appease them by inviting them round for a dip in the property's new indoor swimming pool…

Tables are selling out fast for one of the biggest parties in the media calendar - the charity dinner organised by barter company Astus in aid of Matt Hampson, the former England under-21 rugby player who was paralysed in an accident in 2005.

The black tie dinner promises to be “a celebration of rugby” and will be held during the Six Nations at Battersea Evolution on 3 March, attended by former England captain Martin Johnson and the full England squad.

So far, media companies that have booked tables include Clear Channel, MediaCom, Hello, the Financial Times, Carat and News International; if you would like to join them, please contact Frances Dickens, Astus chief executive, on 7630 4303.

All proceeds from the event will go towards the daily care of Matt, who requires 24-hour support and an estimated £8m over his lifetime.

Media is a glamorous industry - just ask Philip Vecht, founder of washroom advertising firm Admedia, who spent three hours posing in the toilet in the Slug and Lettuce on Wardour Street for a photoshoot for the Sunday Times.

Admedia’s marketing manager Eve Beaton and operations director Jim Kerwick also squeezed into the men's loos, and watched open-mouthed as the photographer tried “all kinds of creative situations” on “the most unique” assignment of his career.

After trying a “tongue-in-cheek” shot of Vecht staring into a urinal, the photographer settled on this tasteful snap (below), portraying the chief executive with an ad between his legs - and copies have been swiftly dispatched to Vecht’s family.

No prizes for guessing which room they will be hung in…

The gyms are packed and the pubs are empty - and 19 Titan staff are drinking Actimel and eating sushi as part of the firm’s annual Fit and Toned Club, organised by head of trading Andy ‘Hambo’ Hamlin.

As before, dieters - who include account director Laura Thompson and trading manager Andrew Gibson - each pay £30 to enter, and the winner is the person to lose the biggest percentage of their body weight.

However, since last year’s winner Phil Kennedy, who lost 16% of his body weight, fell ill after the end of the eight-week challenge, targets have been revised to a less extreme 8%, and the slimming club will only run for four weeks.

Obviously, this has nothing to do with the fact that national sales director Ged Weston is flying to Sri Lanka at the start of February, and needs the £570 pot to pay for his holiday. As he told Bitch: “I am determined to win.”

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Empire's 20th birthday celebrations continued last Thursday, when Bauer execs gathered at Centre Point for a charity auction of specially commissioned photographs, raising £20,000. Empire managing director Stuart Williams hosted the evening, where signed photos of actors such as Mel Gibson and Arnie Schwarzenegger - as organised by Steven Spielberg - were sold in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

In attendance were chief executive Paul Keenan and managing director of the men's division Geoff Campbell, as well as incoming FHM editor Colin Kennedy, Emap alumnus Barry McIlheney and MediaCom's Steve Goodman. Meanwhile, at the launch party for Absolute Radio's "Summer of Live", chief executive Donnach O'Driscoll invited guests to the rooftop of the Sanctum Hotel in Soho to listen to up-and-coming band The White Lies (pictured with DJ Christian O'Connell).

Spotted tapping their feet were Absolute's new commercial director, Chris Goldson, Mediavest's Patrick Whitnall, Vizeum's Zoe Schmid, Starcom's Victoria Gemmell and Manning Gottlieb OMD's Tim Pritchard and James Parnum.

Ashes team falls foul of Law on Lord's pitch

Forget this summer's Ashes, Bitch knows the important cricket tournament took place at Lord's Indoor school on 21 May. ESPN digital media's Cricket Challenge allowed players from UM, MediaCom, Mindshare and more  to rub shoulders with star players including Devon Malcolm, Mark Alleyne, Stuart Law (pictured, far right) and Martin Bicknell. ESPN's Abeed Janmohamed organised the event but, sadly, couldn't organise a winning team.

The Ashes to Ashes team were true media - they didn't win, played hard and proved they couldn't hold their drink by spilling beer on the Lord's turf and knocking over their Champagne glass tower. A MediaCom, Mindshare and ESPN team took the cup, thanks largely to Law of Derbyshire, Essex and Lancashire fame.

Kinetic sweats it out in the '80s to raise funds

Last week's annual fundraising challenge by Kinetic involved staff clad in '80s spandex, sweating profusely and pedalling furiously on a static bike next to their colleagues - and paying for the privilege.

The '80s Charity Spin, organised as part of the outdoor specialist's ongoing fundraising for Leonard Cheshire Disability and The Royal British Legion, included staff from JCDecaux, CBS Outdoor, Titan, Primesight and Mindshare. The gang paid a fiver each for the 90-minute session, which was conducted to a soundtrack of classic '80s hits. Bitch is reliably informed that everyone is "eager to do it again" except, perhaps, for JCDecaux's national sales director Jamie Lindsay, who had to nip off early to "pick up the kids". A coincidence, surely?

TV star sets record for the fastest stick-up

And finally: Clear Channel billboards received some PR on Sky One last week, when TV presenters Steve Jones and Konnie Huq competed on Guinness World Records Smashed! to see who was faster at pasting a billboard poster. The duo were helped out by Clear Channel's bill posters Mick and Mark, and T4's Jones even achieved a new record for the "Fastest Time to Put up a Billboard".

And finally: Brighton-based digital agency iCrossing threw a party to celebrate the opening of its state-of-the-art premises above a Jamie Oliver restaurant on Black Lion Street.

When Bitch met chief client officer Mel Alcock last summer, he assured her the hip new office would feature a fireman's pole, so employees could zip between floors to arrive at their meetings on web analytics in style.

Unfortunately, architects designLSM scrapped the plans for the pole on safety grounds, so revellers had to make do with admiring the jazzy roof terrace, break-out rooms and canteen instead.

A mole confirmed: "The pole would have been a health and safety nightmare." 

Bitch joined Middle England last week at the Daily Mail Literary Lunch, where 500 Mail readers were entertained by ex-MP and Countdown star Gyles Brandreth, former Tory leader Michael Howard's wife Sandra and Radio 4 Today presenter John Humphrys (pictured with Brandreth).

The Mail's John Teal and Brad Young, plus guests including PruHealth marketing director Katie Roswell, Initiative's Jane Wolfson and OMD's Tim Forrest helped bring down the average age of the other diners at London's Royal Lancaster Hotel.

All three speakers were promoting new books and host Brandreth quipped he had often dreamt of going to bed at night with former model Howard but, instead, ended up waking up in the morning with Humphrys.

Howard's third novel revolves around a bomb attack in London's West End and involves some amazing "coincidences" with real-life events. Humphrys' latest tome tackles the difficult subject of confronting death, including the rights and wrongs of assisted suicide.

As a very agreeable lunch drew to a close, Teal admitted he would never go so far as to consider assisted suicide, as he had "died a death" at far too many Daily Mail sales conferences already.  

The MEC Access UK team won an impressive seven awards, including sponsorship of the year, at the Hollis Sponsorship Awards

Manning Gottlieb OMD’s Jake Amos, Harry Lingard, James Thorley, Glenn Burchnall and Matt Hamilton after winning Blink TV’s quiz night

Model Lauren Budd adorns JCDecaux's first live billboard on Old Street

Men's magazines dedicated to either metrosexual matters or scantily clad women are closing for good or retiring from print. Time for a grown-up, sophisticated and challenging publication dedicated to this other, but not exclusively, manly interest: digital technology?
That's what Condé Nast thought as it launched Wired magazine at Skylon, in London's Southbank Centre. GQ editor Dylan Jones, DDB chairman Stephen Woodford and Jamie Jouning, publisher of Wired were among the guests. Others included Aegis Media's Nigel Sharrocks, OMD' s Jonathan Allan, Neil Brown and Tim Forrest, M2M's Nick Bailey and Nicola Anderton, and Zenith's David Grainger, Rupert Dadak and Tim Lamble.

Meanwhile, at Level 31 @ Paramount, thelondonpaper launched its two-day live music event called thelondonpaper Headliners, with a live set by FrankMusik and a DJ performance from Lily Allen's ex, Seb Chew.
Here, guests included MediaCom's Richard Isaac and Vizeum's Tony Giordani, while thelondonpaper was represented by managing director Ian Clark and Caroline Orange from News International Commercial.

Belt-tightening times at Derry House, the home of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, which have been hit by the downturn in advertising revenues.
The Mail on Sunday sales executives, once equipped with company mobile phones, have had them revoked, while more senior executives have had to part with their BlackBerrys.
Their counterparts on the Daily Mail were never afforded such luxuries and, in the immediate future, are unlikely to receive them.
The Daily Mail, whose sales operation was last year renamed Daily Mail Connect, is, it appears, to remain disconnected for now.

Our growing infatuation with social networking service Twitter made some of the best April Fool spoofs quite credible this year.
The Guardian's headline about the paper's "Twitter switch after 188 years of ink", came second to consultancy Decipher's announcement that it had installed a new Twitter TV set-top box, the TwitBox, at iBurbia Studios. This revolutionary invention claimed to sum up The Apprentice's verbal jousts and EastEnders' key plot moments and dialogue in 140 characters. It also aimed to help "the rest of us keep up with major shows like Lost or 24 without the aggravation of actually watching them".
Allegedly, Twitter was about to launch a global online UGC video initiative. Its name, on an empty web page, gave the game away: YouTwit.

Two fruits can tell a story in less than 20 seconds if they happen to be the symbols for two of the most iconic brands in the world. New York-based agency Guava's ad for BlackBerry's Storm touch phone shows a blackberry used as a bullet being shot violently through an apple. The clip has already been viewed more than 720,000 times on youtube.com.

Thinkbox's TV on a Shoestring wasn't just a seminar on how to get big results from small budgets - it also revealed how to run an event on time.
The secret? Have a team member dash to their own wedding after the final presentation. Marketing director Lindsey Clay warned that Visha Kudhail, marketing communications executive, had very important business to attend to and no delay would be allowed. So, not only did the bride make it to her civil ceremony on time, but all the seminar attendees were back at their desks by 1.30pm.

Global Radio's chief executive Stephen Miron was seen snuggling up to comedienne Jo Brand this week at the WACL (Women in Advertising and Communications, London) dinner, where she was guest speaker.
Brand inspired plenty of media ladies with her blunt talking, but she only had eyes for Miron, who she knows from way back when they spent time together on the comedy circuit.
Meanwhile, Media Week columnist Tess Alps was chosen to give the vote of thanks to Brand and expressed immense gratitude to her for promoting Doc Martens as the ultimate female footwear. Female media executives everywhere are now searching through their cupboards to find their flowery pair from the '90s.

Havas-owned media agency Arena BLM organised a fancy dress day to raise money for Comic Relief, and rewarded the member of staff wearing the funniest outfit with an all-expenses paid holiday to Dubai.
Motivation to be the most outstanding dresser was high and the team raised £400.
Deputy managing director Henry Daglish arguably went to the most extreme lengths, shaving some of his hair to create a style inspired by the A-Team's B. A. Baracus.
But while Daglish waits for his hair to grow back, BLM Quantum affiliate manager Sarah Flannery will be enjoying the Emirates sunshine.
Flannery won with her excellent dinner party table costume, which was all self-made.