It’s been a funny week or two of late with lots of quirky stories floating around the news under the usual rubbish such as the Daily Mail trying to find a causal link between Twitter and Cancer so they can run a front page demanding it (Twitter) is banned immediately and all those with accounts get flogged to within an inch of their worthless lives. Pity all those PR ‘executives‘ who have multiple accounts!

It’s also party conference season in the UK, last week it was the Liberal Democrats (given that they are not really either of those two words it’s no wonder they prefer to be called the Lib Dems) and this week it’s Labour who will be turning Liverpool into a bit of a ghost town, other than from political groupies who will probably be fewer in number now that the purse-strings on MP expenses are that little bit tighter than days of old.

The first thing that caught my attention was  the news that Pegasus Global Holdings is building a real ghost town, called The Center, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This town will occupy an area of 20 square miles, that’s the size of Bristol and house 35,000 hypothetical people. It will resemble a mid-sized American town, complete with highways, houses, apartments and commercial buildings in a mix of old and new styles.

Now, I know what most of you are thinking, why has Mr Omneo used a photograph of 3 very attractive ladies who appear to be naked for this post? Well, as you might have guessed from the title, it’s all to do with the new Sanex Zero% range of bath and shower products that have just been launched.

A few weeks ago I was invited along to London’s South Bank to witness a performance that could quite easily have been an entry to the Turner Prize. There, on a sunny afternoon (OK, it was sunny-ish) Sanex had set up a box with some perspex podiums in which stood 3 girls and 1 guy. These four performers were trained in the Graham Technique, moving almost in slow motion for the 20 minute performance. It was certainly an improvement on the usual touristy living sculptures that litter the streets.

Two of the girls and the guy were covered in coloured paint while the remaining girl was covered in soap suds (actually it was shaving foam but Shhh don’t tell anyone I told you!) The paint was meant to represent the chemicals that just about every bath and shower product contains and which we blindly cover ourselves in every time we bathe or shower.

This weekend was one of those weekends where I had what seems like a million and one things to do and strangely was also a weekend where I was in the mood to do some, if not all of them. At least that’s how it was on Friday but Friday was also the day I did nothing but sneeze.

I sneezed a few times on the bus heading into work, much to the annoyance of fellow commuters. I sneezed a dozen times or so at work and then of course threw in a few more sneezes on the bus ride home.

After I arrived home and settled down with a cup of tea I thought about what I had to do. I made a list, checked it twice, checked it a third time where I scored some things off and added a few in their place. Then off to bed to get ready for the weekend of activity.

If you’ve been reading over the last few months you’ll possibly recall my posts on the Last.fm and HP acoustic pop-up events that were held in what passed for Summer in London. I was able to make it along to see both Slow Club and Ghostpoet and in between Boxer Rebellion performed in Carnaby Street.

I’ve often wondered why I don’t hear more about gigs involving Last.fm. I vaguely recall things happening over the years but nothing regular. That could be either because there are no events happening or I’m not looking in the right places but as a long term last.fm user I would have thought they’d wanna tell me, or maybe they did and I’ve forgotten? That happens more than I can remember!

Well, from next month Last.fm are bringing Londoners Live Friday, a monthly event featuring a selection of DJs and acts who are chosen by and here’s the good bit, Last.fm users! OK, so you probably already guessed that, after all, what else is that massive database good for if not to find the kind of acts that people will want to see? If you’re even remotely geeky you’ll love the next bit…

You may or may not have already read an earlier entry where I’ve mentioned the Mancunian drum n bass producer/dj/artist Dub Phizix. Either way, he is releasing free Drum n Bass tracks from his Face Book page.

It’s not necessary to read those earlier entries in order to read this one but if you do like drum and bass, or even if you’re just interested in hearing free music read them in order to access the free downloads as they’ll allow you to explore some slightly different styles. Who knows, you may like it? You’ll find the entries here and here.

Anyway, Dub Phizix has a 4 track EP entitled The Editor coming out on 19 September. The EP features the vocal talents of Strategy, Chimpo and Fox all three of them are from Manchester and the EP is being released on the Mancunian label SOUL:R, which just so happens to be celebrating it’s 10th year anniversary this year. There’s certainly a creative buzz in Manchester and the output is very pleasing to the ears.