Twitter-sourced gigs, a mega vintage fancy dress swap shop, Napoleonic military re-enactments and electronic music in a 19th century fortress…this, dear Splendid friends, is the future of nightlife.

The lords of UK nightlife - including Radio 1’s Rob da Bank, Cream honcho James Barton, club promotions agency Don’t Panic and Mark Ronson’s agent Cris Hearn - have hand-picked the most original and forward-thinking promoters out of the many who applied via the Smirnoff Night Vision page on Facebook. Check out the line-up below for one-of-a-kind nights across the country you don’t want to miss…

Friday, July 31:

Museum Sessions @ The Manchester Museum, University of Manchester

Saturday, August 1:

Tunnel Vision @ Fort Horstead, Chatham

Thursday, August 6:

Twitgigs @Vibe Bar, London

Friday, August 7:

Dress Up with Dollup @ Stealth in Nottingham

Circus of Oddities @ Copper Jacks, Manchester

For tickets and more info on Smirnoff Night Vision, check out www.facebook.com/urthenight.

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Smirnoff: U. R. The Night event at o2’s Matter club saw the Pet Shops Boys and Little Boots performing live with Hot Chip, Tom Middleton and The Count and Sinden on the decks. It was a truly unforgettable night that included secret rooms, rebel bingo, swaparama razzmatazz, a room that was lit entirely by torches, dress up boxes and amazing cocktails of course! Check out the video to see just how incredible it really was:

From a social-media-meets-real-world point of view, everyone who was at the event won tickets by getting involved on some level – submitting cocktail and boat party theme ideas, voting on the tracks the DJ should play and who should be the second room entertainment. This format is a brilliant one for turning online engagement into real world action, and what’s more, a brilliant party night. Check out more photos and videos from the night on: www.facebook.com/urthenight

The People's Bar with cocktail recipes submitted by the public at Smirnoff U.R. The Night

Little Boots presents Neil Tennant with a birthday cake at Smirnoff U.R. The Night

Little Boots performing at Smirnoff U.R.The Night

View of the crowd

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Want to get your hands on the hottest t-shirt designs since Kate Morross? Our boy Pete, designer extraordinaire and sometime basement DJ, has just launched his pest-alicious site featuring not two but three exclusive designs. Screen printed by hand, not one of those mass manufactured jobbies. And only 20 quid. Total bargain for the coolest t-shirts ever! (Ok, we may be slightly biased but check ‘em out for yourself at http://www.pestisbest.bigcartel.com/.)

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To celebrate the release of Marston’s Pedigree Marmite, Splendid enlisted the help of ex-England cricketer Phil Tufnell and released an anthem - ‘The Ashes Song’ by Tuffers and the Wooden Urns - to sledge the Vegemite-munching Aussies and cheer the England lads on to victory at the Ashes next month. Available to download from iTunes.com all profits will be donated to Cricket for Change, a cricket community charity which uses the game to change young lives. Click here to download the single and show the England lads your support this Summer!

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=318315773

Keep up to date with all the latest Cricket news and gossip at http://www.twitter.com/stickycricket

For more info on Cricket for Change visit http://www.cricketforchange.org.uk

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On Friday we were at a breakfast briefing with Jon Gripton – online news editor for Sky News.   In the conference our Marstons Marmite campaign was mentioned as an example of a great story which had been well pitched and hence made it on to the site. It’s good to know that doing PR Right still makes a difference, thanks Gorkana!

Here is the Marmite coverage which ran on Friday night and right through the weekend on the homepage!

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Today’s best in blogs shows up some interesting trends:

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Virgin and Universal to roll out music service - vnunet.com

BBC NEWS | Technology| BBC licence fee ‘could be shared’

Nokia plans to develop energy harvesting phone

Digital TV - News - BT hopes Canvas will diffuse iPlayer row

3 Debuts “Free Calls Forever” Sim Zero £0 Contract - ITProPortal.com

UK Mobile Broadband Delivers Less Than 25 Percent Of Advertised Speeds - ITProPortal.com
Digital Britain: What to expect sector by sector from Lord Carter’s report | Media | guardian.co.uk

Newly asked questions: Is Microsoft’s new Bing search engine better than Google? | Technology | The Guardian

Facebook Chat: 1 Billion Messages Sent Per Day

Top 5 Twitter Related Trends to Watch

Top 10 Social Media Stories of the Week

Social Media Goo: Cadbury Campaign Going Viral

Dream discoveries

Specs that shine a blue light in your eyes could give you a good night’s sleep | Mail Online

And it’s career we go again | The Sun |Features

Sex kitten in butter knickers | The Sun |

Cyrus Hannah Montana to End After Next Season Flower Power For ‘Big Brother’ Housemates

News | Lindsay Lohan to be questioned by police | Holy Moly!

Struggling BA asks 40,000 staff to work for nothing in desperate fight for survival | Mail Online

The rise of the blipvert: Ofcom allows radio stations to advertise downloads after playing songs | Mail Online

Mobile Marketing Magazine: Virgin Selects Samsung for V Festival

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Nice Album, Shame About The Cover

My current favourite blog and one the reasons I love the internet; you get to meet folks with the most interesting but ultimately, well, specialist obsessions. This particular blog impresses me on two levels. Firstly, someone has access to an outstanding collection of jazz records. Second, they have taken the time to analyse thousands of them and categorise the cover artwork with labels like “Bad Day For a Photoshoot”, “Outer limits of taste” and, of course, “focus on phallus”. My personal favourite is the category “all work is prostitution really”.

Flight of the Conchords is back on BBC4. The preview documentary was a bit boring, the first episode of the new series was a miss but by episode 2, New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo accapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo are rocking again, once more under guidance of their useless manager, Murray. This episode features the brilliant R&B pastiche ‘Sugar lumps’ and sees the guys contemplating a career as male prostitutes to pay the bills: Bret:

Jemaine, I don’t think we’re going to get sex and get paid. Jemaine: Why not? Bret: ‘Cause we never get sex or get paid.

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Our own Dear Emma rocking out an awesome pre-babby Monday ensemble:

Love my Bump

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