Mr Omneo Blogs…

When it comes to music I know there are genres out there that I’ve not taken the time to listen to. I’ll leave out my usual rant about how there are too many genres and sub-genres out there which I sometimes feel is done just to confuse the hell out of me. Oh who am I kidding? Of course I know record producers are not sitting there doing bumps of coke and hitting the bong thinking, How can we fuck with Mr Omneo today? Oh I know we’ll invent a genre called Black Metal and see how long he takes to realise it’s just that Thrash Metal shit he doesn’t like. Or maybe they do? I dunno…

Anyway, the other week I got an email suggesting I have a listen to an e.p. of a Mancunian Grime artist who goes by the name Skittles.  Now, when I hear the word grime I think of dirt and when I hear the word Skittles I think of  brightly coloured sugary treats. Grime+Skittles= Bright and dirty sugary treats? Hmm I wondered, is this someone fucking with me again? I read on and was told to imagine Frank Skinner and scroobius pip but more urban.  Whereas I might have hit delete I instead hit download.  My curiosity was well and truly piqued! Read the rest of this entry »

If you like music, which I do, then there is a good chance you’ll know James Lavelle, the world-renowned producer, label owner and DJ.  It’s possible his name is unfamiliar to you but if I said UNKLE, you might think, Oh yes, that guy from Mo’wax.  Well, James has now added the role of art curator to his CV and if his pop-up exhibition at London’s Haunch of Venison gallery is anything to go by, he’s pretty good at it. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes, just sometimes, you hear a phrase that brings back memories and if you’re of a certain age the title of this entry probably brought back a flood of memories for you.  Yes, I’m talking about Soda Stream!

From the conversations I’ve had over the past few weeks you possibly fall into one of two camps.  You either had a Soda Stream or you were friends with someone who had one.

Interestingly, so far, I’ve yet to find someone who had one but everyone seems to have had a friend who did.  Far be it for me to suggest that people were only befriended for their Soda Streams but as a kid I think the only reason I  stayed friends with a classmate was because his mum would always say those magical words when I used to visit his house, Would you boys like a Soda Stream? and off we would rush into the kitchen to make our own individual little bottles of fizzy pop. Read the rest of this entry »

As regular readers will know.  In 2009 I decided to make a New Year Resolution that was different from the one I usually make.  Well, I figured that after 5 years of the same resolution and it not working it was time to move on.  So, for 2009 I decided I would not drink alcohol and, with the exception of a bottle of Becks that someone bought me instead of Becks Blue I managed it.

Now, while I’ve gone through periods of not drinking before, I’ve never gone over 6 months. Usually because I’ve gotten sick and tired of paying pub/club prices for cola, lemonade and fruit juices and there’s only so much of each you can drink in a night.  Nowadays it’s much easier to find alcohol free beers, ciders and wines both in supermarkets, online and even in bars, pubs and clubs.

So, what about after the year was up?  I decided I would not stop drinking alcohol mainly due to the fact that I enjoyed wine and couldn’t imagine never drinking it again.  What I have found is that I very often don’t drink alcohol when I am out and when I do, I drink less than before.  At home I drink fruit juice, cordials or alcohol free beer with Bavaria 0.0% my favourite by a mile.  If I could find it in bars I’d be super happy as it’s so very tasty.  I’ve recently tried their wheat beer and it’s also very refreshing, especially in the recent warm weather we’ve been enjoying.

But back to the wine. My heart sank when I perused Tesco and discovered they still sold Eisberg alcohol free wine, my memories of it from 20 years ago left a lot to be desired but at £2.99 a bottle I thought why not!  that was until I tasted it… there are not enough words in the English language for me to describe how awful it is and even my limited Arabic, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese can’t assist.  All I can say, politely, about it is the Chardonnay tasted like still cider that had been left in a glass overnight! Read the rest of this entry »

The problem with having an over active, yet lazy, imagination and self is the issue of starting lots of things and finishing none of them due to some almost unachievable attention to detail on how things should be.  OK, that’s quite a long winded way of saying I started lots of blog posts but they’ve all got stuck in Draft limbo because I had a great idea part-way through each blog and started a new blog and then…you can see where this is going can’t you?

So, the end result is I’ve deleted all the drafts as can’t seem to find as much enthusiasm to finish them off as I obviously had when I started them.  This means of course that some topics I really wanted to mention I won’t because I’ve forgotten them.  That’s not to say the topics were not worth remembering, it’s because I naturally have a bad memory I sometimes rely on my blog to remind myself of things I like!

One campaign that I should mention is one being run by Aviva, it’s their Tell Us Your Story campaign.  They are looking for people who’ve gone out of their way to help others, caring souls (their words not mine!) who have answered the needs of an individual, family or local community.  You nominate them online and could win a £1,000 prize for Story of the Week.   Stories are also voted for by the public, with the overall favourite receiving a specially tailored grand prize worth £10,000. And it doesn’t stop there!  For every nomination made Aviva will be donating £1 to the Street to School programme. Read the rest of this entry »