On the 5(0) ^th day of Christmas my true love gave to me … something rather sensual.

Not quite the season for outdoor entertainment you might think, but then you might not have seen ‘50 Sheds of Grey’. Subtitled ‘Erotica for the not-so-modern male’, this is tasteful (sheds can, it seems, be very elegant), short and witty. Sample: “She stood before me, naked in my shed. ‘I’m yours for today,’ she gasped, ‘You can do whatever you want with me.’ So I took her to Nando’s.”

See the sheds at http://fiftyshedsofgrey.tumblr.com/ or published by Boxtree in hardback.

… retailers with heart.

I love the big production number TV Christmas commercials, but equally I believe that Christmas is a time to remember people who are not as well off as you are, so perhaps it’s not surprising that I really like the new Waitrose Christmas special (despite finding both Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal very stilted as presenters)…

Watch the Waitrose Christmas 2012 ad here.

The real reason we’ve got opposable thumbs!

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the first text message being received by a mobile phone on a commercial network.

Neil Papworth sent “Merry Christmas” to a colleague on an Orbital mobile phone (though he had to send it from a PC).

Last year 8,000,000,000, 000 messages were sent globally generating an estimated $100, 000,000,000.

The shape of messaging will continue to change, whether through extended feature speccing or through branded alternatives like Twitter.

However, at the centre of its success is its simplicity – no signing-up, no installation, no logging-in, no agreeing to T&C, no compatibility checks.

Long may it last!

…A 5m-high advent calendar made up of more than 60,000 LEGO bricks, as it happens.

With the news ringing in our ears that the world’s largest advent calendar had gone on display this week in London’s Covent Garden, courtesy of LEGO, we decided it was time to introduce our own Christmas countdown.

Sadly, we haven’t been able to discover a means of enclosing a chocolate behind each post, but for the next 22 days, we’ll be giving you The Value Engineers’ very own take on the advent, with our round-up of the best Christmas news, stories and themes.

So to kick off the festivities, we wanted to raise a glass of eggnog to LEGO – the perennial favourite of our Director of Deviancy, Giles, but also one of the companies that’s been leading the way in innovative kids’ marketing and positioning throughout 2012. It’s only fitting that they’ve rounded off the year with a festive greeting that builds on (pun thoroughly intended) their position – a fun, playful, construction-led brand that provides something for kids and adults alike to return to, again and again.

Our research predicted back in May that Obama would win a second term but also that he would win the swing states of Ohio and Florida (currently being processed Obama winning with 97% of votes collated) AND we also beat the pollsters and the bookies in all the states we tested in (Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Texas).

Why Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Texas? Because we knew that they have predicted the results of the election in 12 of the previous 13 elections.

Bookies had Romney as the favourite to win Florida and whilst it was continually polled in October, Romney was considered by most to be the eventual winner.

And we also know which parts of the candidates’ propositions drove voters’ choices!

Just think how our approach might be drive successful concept testing and portfolio management!