New York is about half way between London and Portland, where our head office is, so it’s a reasonable place for a meeting with Dave Luhr, our CEO from Portland. But this wasn’t the best week to be flying in and out of NYC. Above was the view from my hotel window, the morning after I got in. A bit of a snow fall.

The snow fell heavily and continuously for about 24 hours, and the news said it was the heaviest fall they’d had since records began. I’d never seen weather like it.

I reckon that in London a freak snowstorm like this would paralyse the city for at least a week. Public transport would shut down completely, the government would declare a state of emergency, pensioners would starve to death and absolutely nobody would show up for work or school. But in New York, even at the height of the storm the subways were still running. And on Monday they all just got out their shovels and snowploughs. In 24 hours the worst of it was all cleared and things all seemed to be running normally. Is this a question of preparation or just one of attitude?

Last week Nike put together an event on Wieden + Kennedy’s home soil, the Truman Brewery (which is next door to our offices) to launch their World Cup campaign. The great and the good of football (and those who worked on the Joga Bonito campaign at Wieden and Kennedy) were invited down to hear about Nike’s antidote to the ugly football that is prevalent in today’s game. (Lee Bowyer punching his team mate springs to mind).

Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Rooney, Rio and Dizzee Rascall (with an unnecessarily enormously gigantic bouncer) amongst others were there to share their thoughts.

Monsieur Cantona telling us what it is to be free as a bird.

Emma Trotman falling in love with Monsieur.

I have to say, most of us who were there promptly became small star gazed kids when we saw Nike’s best athletes walking around. Rooney is actually a bit of a dude. He’s got the sort of attitude that will run rings around a Brazilian team at the World Cup.

Rio and Anton Ferdinand, Cristiano Ronaldo and Rooney amongst others playing a game of Joga 3:

Play beautiful everyone.

Meanwhile, the new Nike World Cup advertising campaign, created by Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam, consists of eight spots, the first showing a guerilla media team, headed by Eric Cantona, taking over a television station to deliver the group’s manifesto. In the first ad, Cantona says "we’ve let liars and cheaters make a fool of the game" and that he is here to "remind the world that this game is about skill, heart, honor, joy, team spirit." He urges us to make the game beautiful again.

You can watch the first ad here.