The iPint. Yes. That iPhone application that's been proudly sprayed across the creds of a certain ad agency as proof of their digital skills and fast paced ability to crack a simple idea that is spread by thousands.

Admit it - we've seen at least one plank in the pub using it - quaffing their imaginary lager to the delight of their equally hilarious chums.

And each time that H&G logged into the apps page - there it was - a constant reminder of what seemed to be a great, easy and of course free idea that users by their thousands downloaded much to the delight of Carling, the brand attached to the free Ap.

Except in a classic and frankly typical twist turns out the idea wasn't theirs. One of the team had seen it in America and decided to take the idea for their client.

Granted they offered to buy the licence from Hottrix (the actual creator), who politely declined as they were shifting plenty of units at $2.99 a pop.

So BMB thought, sod it, and stole the idea anyway. Allegedly of course.

Currently the latest state of play is that Hottrix are sueing for £7m for lost revenues and irrepparable damages.

Which brings me to this thought. If you blatently rip off someones elses idea and badge it as your own, then frankly, you deserve all you get.

Hot off the press H&G are excited about winning a Campaign Media Award for the Halifax and Sun partnership. The idea ?

We managed to convince News International to create a completely new newspaper for us. For a year. With our own journalist.

Well done us !

While one half of H&G is set in rant mode - and very good it was too - the other half of the dynamic duo has had a rather entertaining afternoon submerged in the land of records and 'bitchin beats'.

The tracks in question are for the up and coming Prodigy album 'Invaders Must Die'.

Look out festival land - some of these numbers are going to be huge live !

Hopefully look out for the anarchy that will hit the streets once the campaign goes live early next year.

Posters in flames ? You heard it here first.

How advertising works: part one...

Short answer: nobody knows. Slightly longer answer: if I knew, I wouldn't be here - I'd be enjoying my soon-to-be-submerged island in the Maldives.

What I hope H&G are here to do is to explain why certain things work and certain things don't.

And hopefully to have some fun at the same time.

Take, as a perfect example, the Cadbury's Gorilla. (Can you feel it, coming in the air tonight?).

Clearly, this was a critical success: winning all sorts of awards...and of course, increasing sales by a giant 9% year-on-year. Our favourite award was for our old agency which stood on stage and describe the TV strategy was about buying 'big spots'. Sorry, 'talkabout TV', whatever that hackney phrase might suggest !

Against a year where Cadbury's didn't advertise. Erm. Ah, well.... nope. No excuse. It didn't really work. Didn't. Work. At All. But industry people liked it.

So of course, it must reproduced with a further Magnum Opus. Which you are currently seeing as a bunch of airport trucks racing. To a theme tune of - currently - Bon Jovi.

Gentlemen: one cannot polish a turd. A sow's ear - or dog's puckering rectum - and this is just that.

Admit it: you don't know why anyone liked the Gorilla - and it didn't work then either - but you wish to recreate it, because the client wants "another one: just like that".

If you would like to know why it "worked" you know where we are.

JR

11.34 Jack says "I remember studying in college John Major's election victory in '92 as a demonstartion of how market research - which had Labour MILES ahead - is inadequate as a predictor of human behviour. Major won, but the polls had him losing by 6-7%; but when asked, people would not admit they were Conservative...but they did - in privacy - vote that way.

Analogy to America? Well, who, to a pollster, would admit they were a racist?

23:07 We've had some real issues over a flippant observation. McCain has a certain mannerism with his arms. Sort of like both arms with every gesture are being prodded up with two sticks. Kermit like. Think about it and let us know.

23:07 We've had some real issues over a flippant observation. McCain has a certain mannerism with his arms. Sort of like both arms with every gesture are being prodded up with two sticks. Kermit like. Think about it and let us know.

22:59 The Paxman debate now rages. They seem to be calling things already...madness...remember the 'hanging chads'

10:41 It's difficult. Really difficult. How can we sit here eating hot dogs and munching Us related snacks (cheeseits are winning)

10:45 We have Ugly Naked Guy over the road from us. It's official. Plums out and visible to us all so great excitement has reached H&G towers. It may just be about the downy hair we can revoltingly see but could it be a predictor of the lightly afro'd potential leader of the free world ?

10.37 Is that what Obama is about? The end of lying, the end of hypocrisy, the end of corruption? I would be very surprised if he is.

22:18 First time the 'Wasilla' factor is mentioned. We await a Jackie Onasis style montage of expensively dressed Alaskan Vice President hopefull waving frantically while also speaking. Almost a patting of head while rubbing stomach that could win her the top spot in US politics. Sorry. Second spot. For the moment.

22:25 We've taken a break from the 'real' coverage to branch into The Daily Show. Which we feel is a) funnier and frankly b) more accurate. Go Stewart !

22.27 Watching yesterday's Today Show and noting today's Guardian: what happens to satire should MLK/Rosa Parks/JFK/Jesus win? Disappointment awaits us. Like New Year 2000, something landmark and noteworthy happened, but nothing will be different. For New Year 2000, we based an exultory party on the birthdate of a fairytale figure no more real than Santa Claus (and no less human-created). Is Obama so different?

Does the world change because a black man has a chance to control America?

Fuck I hope so.

10.10 Dana Bash (CNN) should not be on TV. Or any visual medium. Anyone would think CNN was British judging their allowing ugly people like her on TV.

DISCLAIMER: H&G are in an emotionally heightened state and therefore judgemental today. You know, judgemental and intolerant, like Sarah Palin's God.

10:06 Bill Schnieder, the Peter Snow of America, spells out the terribly basic rules of democracy. ie that people vote and that someone counts the votes. We fear that this kind of coverage spells a worryingly 'basic' approach to coverage. Will there be Dimblebyesque insight or will it be hours of 'my fellow Americans'. We suspect the latter......

And today, and in deference to the joy of our last minute by minute blog on sport..tonight...it's the election night !

Stay tuned political fans and more soon....

And we ask one question to start things off.

10:01 Could Wolf Blitzer have been successful if he had not been christened Wolf Blitzer ?