East London has always been home to rats. And now there are a few more. This is ‘rat race’, a thing we’ve done which can now be seen in our office window on Hanbury Street EC1. It was devised and made by The Siders, with help from Tom and David. It’s a tube map made from real tubes, living in which are real rats. Here’s one of them. It could be Richard. Or maybe Theo.

We’ve taken every care to ensure that these chaps are living in rat luxury. No rats have been harmed in the creation of this display.

A rat. On the tube. (See what we’ve done there?)

Rat lovers gather in Hanbury Street to marvel.

And there’s more. Yes, it’s interactive! You can click your mouse on our rats by visiting ratbook. It’s Facebook for rats. And you can ‘friend’ your favourite rats.

Back in May 2007, Campaign magazine ran the above front page story. At the time, we posted on this blog:

Next year, in 2008, Visit Wales will be required, as are all public
sector accounts, to go through a formal review process on the third
anniversary of our winning the business. This tender process, which is
a matter of public record, is not referred to anywhere in Campaign’s
article. I hope that when that review happens we will be successful in
retaining the account. In the meantime, I contacted Noel Bussey who
wrote the article to offer him a bet — £1000 of my own money says we’ll
still have the business at the end of 2007. Funnily enough, he didn’t
accept.

The other day, this story ran in Marketing:

Visit Wales Halts Business Review

Visit Wales has temporarily suspended the review of its creative, digital, direct and media planning accounts due to funding difficulties.

I should have upped the stakes!