Selfridges in Oxford Street will launch its Christmas season on the 2^nd of August, a full 145 days before the holiday – it’s earliest-ever start for the store.

People keen to plan ahead can purchase trees, crackers, fairy lights or even a £500 life-size donkey. The store said previous sales had shown some customers, especially overseas tourists, started thinking about Christmas during August. Last year, its festive shop sold more than 1,000 baubles during the first week of trading after opening on 8 August. The shop said customers could paint their own baubles this year.

Did you know the flagship store in London’s Oxford Street is the second largest shop in the UK (after Harrods) and was opened on 15 March 1909. Don’t worry Gift Selection won’t be putting out it’s Christmas based promotional items just yet, and I doubt they will even offer any life size donkeys what so ever. If you’re looking for branded baubles however, your talking their language…

Promotional sportswear is big business in the corporate gift industry, having your school kids football team all kitted out with their own branded kits, will make them feel much more professional.

Branded sports kits don’t come too much bigger then Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, who have agreed a shirt sponsorship deal, restricted to Premier League games, with software company Autonomy Corporation. The two-year deal, which begins from the start of the 2010/2011 season, will see the Autonomy brand feature on the Tottenham Hotspur shirt in Barclays Premier League matches.

The football club said that it was in discussions with several brands regarding the shirt sponsorship opportunity for Cup competitions which will incorporate the FA Cup, League Cup and European Competitions.

Of course its not just branded football shirts that are available. Get your very own embroidered polo shirts for your pool team, or if you’re a bit posher, have your own polo shirts for your polo team!

Gift Selection can offer promotional clothing from all the best manufacturers of branded garments; contact their friendly team today for more information.

If you’re a tennis fan, you’ll know doubt have enjoyed the spectacle of Roger Federer avoiding one of the biggest upsets in tennis history as he came from two sets down to beat Alejandro Falla at Wimbledon.

The defending champion came through 5-7 4-6 6-4 7-6 (7-1) 6-0 in an eye-brow raising opening match on Centre Court. Falla, the world number 60, served for the match at 5-4 in the fourth set, but top seed Federer found the strength from somewhere. “I definitely got very lucky out there,” a relieved Federer told BBC Sport after winning in three hours and 18 minutes to book a second-round meeting with Serbia’s Ilija Bozoljac.

Having broken Pete Sampras’s Grand Slam record at the All England Club last year, Federer is now looking to equal the American’s haul of seven Wimbledon titles, but for much of the game the Swiss champion looked as though he’d be watching the rest of the tournament on Murray Mount. “For some reason, I wasn’t able to read his serve. That really rattled me. I had to look for that for a long time. Thank God I found it eventually,” said Federer.

If you’re looking forward to watching Andy Murray today, chances are you’d love some tennis based promotional products. Did you know Gift Selection can supply promotional tennis balls? I don’t even play tennis, but I still want some tennis balls with my name on!

Branded tennis balls are just one example of unusual sport based promotional products that Gift Selection can offer; contact their friendly team if you’re looking for something specific.

See the game on Saturday? Painful wasn’t it. If we can’t beat a team that doesn’t even call football by its real name, then we have some serious issues.

The England camp is more optimistic than me. Robert Green is confident he has the mental resolve to bounce back from the World Cup howler that helped the United States draw 1-1 with England.

“I’m sure there’s 50-odd million people disappointed with me, but I’ll come back, work hard and it won’t affect me,” said West Ham goalkeeper Green.

“At half time I walked in, apologised to the lads and moved on.”

Gerrard added: “Conceding the goal shocked us a bit because when you go in front a team like us expects to go on and win… we can’t criticise the keeper - the ball is tricky and we’ll get behind Rob. I’m sure he’ll come back from this, learn from this, and go from strength to strength. He’ll play his part further down the line. Terry added: “It’s one of those things. Mistakes happen and we’re in this together. We need to get behind Rob - he’s got good friends here.”

Capello’s strategy of naming his team just before the game was backed by the Football Association’s Trevor Brooking.

“His idea has always been that sometimes when you have a big squad and you know the team, those not involved switch off and you become a playing group and a non-playing group,” the Football Association’s director of football development told BBC Radio 5 live’s Sportsweek programme.

Remember it’s not to late to get your hands on some World Cup based promotional products. You know you don’t have to travel all the way to South Africa, to have your own brand vuvuzela!

This type of plastic horn or trumpet has been used in Mexican stadiums since the 1970s. Originally made out of tin, the vuvuzela became popular in South Africa in the 1990s. Well-known Kaizer Chiefs FC fan Freddie “Saddam” Maake claims to have invented the vuvuzela by adapting an aluminium version as early as 1965 from a bicycle horn after removing the black rubber to blow with his mouth. He later found it to be too short and joined a pipe to make it longer.

Contact the friendly team over at Gift Selection for your branded Vuvuzelas!

The world and his wife are aligning themselves with the World Cup, with some clever branding from a wide variety of businesses. The latest company to jump on the brandwagon is Nestle’s Kit Kat, who are to sponsor all the Sky World Cup coverage as part of the UK’s largest dedicated mobile campaign to date.

I don’t think Kit Kats play a major role in the player’s diets, but this hasn’t stopped the  six-figure deal, brokered by Mindshare, will see Kit Kat sponsor Sky’s World Cup coverage across iPhone, iPod Touch, Smart-phones and all other WAP-enabled mobile devices.

Last week, it was revealed that Mars and The Football Association (FA) are considering legal action against Nestlé, which they believe has breached sponsorship rules in its latest ad for its Kit Kat brand. Unlike Nestle, Mars, landed a five-year partnership with The FA in October and is an official supplier to the England team.

A Nestlé spokesperson said: “During the World Cup, websites tend to become very noisy with a wide range of advertisers vying for consumer attention. This led us to divert our attention to mobile as an interesting new platform to engage audiences. And as the pre-eminent provider of sports and news content on mobile devices, Sky was a natural destination for us.”

If you’re looking to promote your business, with some patriotic promotional products to be used specifically during the World Cup, contact the experts over at Gift Selection. Gift Selection is a quality promotional product distributor who have a full range of corporate gifts, made specifically available for the World Cup 2010.

The sun has definitely put his hat on, meaning now is the time to roll out your summer promotions. If your organisation has links with travel and tourism, then there are many great low cost promotional items, that will do a great job of getting your brand noticed far and wide.

How do you feel about beach balls? Perhaps not an obvious choice, but for a low cost item that can easily be stored away for a trip abroad – it could be worth enquiring. The beauty of branding fun leisure items like this, is that your brand will be associated with happy times and fond memories.

One promotional product distributor who specialises in European type items is Promostore. They have a great selection of summery promotional items, that might not be what you were originally looking for, but once you see them – you know you’ll love them.

Whether it’s branded beach towels, branded beach games, you name it Promostore can supply it. What’s more the vast majority of the branded goods are available in a variety of vibrant and attractive colour options.

The only thing they can’t brand is ice lollies – but they’re working on that.

The sun has been shining for the last few days, with many Brits daring to dream of BBQs and dig out their khaki shorts once again. With spring seemingly ‘leap-frogged’ by Summer, what could be more British then watching cricket?

I suppose by watching British cricket? OK, you’ve got a point there, but for now the popular IPL is capturing the imaginations of cricket fans worldwide. Not all is well though, as India’s cricket board has suspended IPL chief Lalit Modi over corruption allegations, in what as described as “the worst crisis to hit the Indian game this century.”

At an emergency meeting on Monday the Indian cricket board, the BCCI, named an interim chairman and said it was searching for “missing” IPL documents. Mr Modi, who is being investigated by tax officials, denies all allegations of wrongdoing.

If watching the cricket has inspired you (to play cricket I mean, not to embark on a career in corruption), then supplying corporate sports and cricket clothing in particular is no problem for Gift Selection.

Quality brands such as Slazenger, are available from Gift Selection. It is not just promotional clothing that they can supply, if you require the right volume, branded bags, branded bottles – any promotional item you can think of is possible through them. If you’re holding a corporate sporting event, less obvious promotional items can work well too such as branded lip balms.

Did you see the British number 1; miss out on his first Grand Slam title yesterday? Despite being Fedorized, Andy Murray said his desire to win a Grand Slam title remained intact, despite a solid defeat at the Australian Open.

The Briton lost 6-3 6-4 7-6 (13-11) to Roger Federer in Sunday’s final. “I’m hungry to win one,” said the 22-year-old Scot. “I haven’t since I was 16, 17 years old when I started playing the junior Grand Slams.”I worked really, really hard to try to do it and give myself the opportunity. So far it’s not been good enough but I’m sure one day it will be.”

Andy Murray’s defeat means that the 74-year-wait for a British male Grand Slam singles champion continues, a British man hasn’t won a major tournament since Fred Perry lifted the US Open trophy back in 1936.

Despite all the grey skies, if all this Tennis has got you in the mood for a game, I’m sure you would appreciate some quality Tennis related promotional products from The Promostore. The Promostore can supply a great range of branded Tennis items including; branded tennis balls, branded tennis bags and Men’s and Ladies’ cool fit sport tops.

If you are looking for any promotional sports item in particular, contact the friendly team over at The Promostore, who will be able to source exact what you’re looking for.

The sports merchandise sector is one of the biggest parts of the promotional products industry, as we all know how fanatical supporters can be of their particular team or sport. With the World Cup in South Africa not too far away, Gift Selection is preparing to offer a wide range of promotional products for what is the sporting highlight of the year.

They have a great range of low cost promotional sports items that are great giveaways for football fans watching the games in bars. There range of corporate gifts for the world cup, is a great opportunity for practically any organisation to get patriotic, and raise their profile this summer.

Some of the branded promotional items on offer are a: foldable pocket flat, supporters rattle, horns & noise makers, Supports hats & caps, car sun protectors, hand clappers, football scarves and even promotional footballs.

They can even supply Fair Trade footballs, which will ensure a great quality product along with guaranteed socially responsible conditions.  It is not true that these footballs have to be much more expensive than no-certified products due to the comprehensive measures taken. Remember that all of their branded sports items can be fully personalised, my particular favourite are the painted horns! Bespoke horns and promotional noisemakers will give your corporate image involved in the festivity, and will certainly gain attention.

You would be forgiven for associating London’s Leicester Square with all the glamour of the film industry. However yesterday saw the prestigious spot filled with computer game fans for the premier of much anticipated and catchy titled Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

The hardcore (some might say sad), gamers were treated to a fanfare of martial music and Jeeps. While US Marine look-a-likes took the invited audience down a camouflage carpet into the Vue cinema, while the crowds leaned over the barriers.

For those who don’t know, Modern Warfare 2 is set five years after the conclusion of Call of Duty 4. Despite the efforts of the Marines and the SAS, those pesky Ultranationalists seize control of Russia and start a reign of terror across Europe!

If you looked really hard you may have seen the promotional umbrellas that were there too. The organisers rightly decided that branded AK-47s wouldn’t be very tasteful, and decided having some promotional umbrellas made would make for a smart marketing tool.

If your organisation is in the market for branded umbrellas, then contact Umbrella Store, as they did a fine job of supplying the promotional umbrellas for the Call of Duty event. For that particular client, a branded Bedford umbrella was chosen, but all different models of branded umbrellas are available.

Printed promotional umbrellas make a great corporate gift, as they are both practical and stylish. They can work for any organisation – even for a computer game!