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!

So what can I tell you about Skittles? Well, he was born into this world in 1986 under the moniker of Liam Kelly and was diagnosed as suffering from ADHD at the age of 11.  In 2007 he released an album called 2 Pints of Brandy and a Packet of Skittles, a heady concoction if ever there was one and in 2009 he featured in a Nokia Marketing viral campaign advertising their Nokia 5310 handsets, writing and performing a purpose made tune titled ‘Comes with Music’ and Skittles and Ed Lilly (Director from Blind Aura Pictures) were commissioned by Manchester Youth Offending Services to write and produce the Councils new anti-knife crime film ‘ManHunt’ and Eminem’s DJ, Green Lantern, described him as The English Slim. So it’s safe to say the guy has some talent.

Back to the e.p. which is a sampler from his soon to be released second album, with a title I love, Poor with £100 Trainers. There are 4 tracks and all four are pretty good, so much so I didn’t notice that I had listened to it 5 times on repeat the first time I gave it a whirl. The tunes, for want of a better word, are catchy and the lyrics combine humour with seriousness.  Despite being a free download I thought I’d embed 2 of the tracks, Boys in Blue and Suicide Bombers, for you to have a listen to as I know some of you won’t bother clicking on another link to download them, it’s okay, we can all be a little lazy at times!

You’ll notice that the Suicide Bombers track has a sample from a Billy Connolly stand-up routine near the end, when I heard it I had a real belly ache laugh and I say that as someone who is not a huge fan of Billy’s recent material but I had to go seek out the full clip on YouTube which you might enjoy as well, perhaps not if you’re easily offended tho.

You’ll find Skittles website at www.oneguycalledskittles.com and the e.p. can be downloaded free from http://shop.oneguycalledskittles.com if you enjoyed the 2 clips here you’ll enjoy the other two and I dare say you’ll enjoy the album when it comes out later this year.

I should also mention a great website, Example Magazine, which will keep you informed on the musical, social and creative culture in Manchester, one of the most vibrant in England. (Nobody tell the Scousers I said that!)

When I find myself in moments like this I usually retreat from the computer and find something else to kill time.  On this occasion I didn’t reject the computer totally, instead I honed in on one website, the one that would take me to Echo Bazaar!  Fiendishly addictive, I feel cheated if I don’t get to exhaust my daily supply of actions.

Other than that, not much else has happened that is worth reporting on so instead of me waffling on here are three tracks that should hopefully chill you out a little. Enjoy!

In actual fact, my inability to speak a foreign language is not through lack of trying.  Over the years I’ve invested heavily in books, cassette tapes (remember those?) and compact discs in an attempt to learn French, Italian, Japanese, Czech and Arabic.  Strangely I was told my Arabic and Japanese pronunciation was better than my French…go figure!

When I was 19 I went on a mini-adventure that took me to France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco and 1 hellish night and day in Gibraltar.  I returned to the UK with extremely fond memories of Portugal and I’m sure a girl called Virginie from Avignon still has a sliver of what passes as my heart, but that’s another story.  I ended my trip with a six week stint in Paris, or more accurately a suburb called Saint Michel sur Orge.  It wasn’t until much later I realised just how far away from the centre of Paris I really was so I left with pretty non-memorable memories.  Paris? I thought, Nothing special, what’s all the fuss about? On the recent Eurostar sponsored day trip I went on my opinion changed a little.  What little of Paris I did see, I saw through different eyes and I made a mental note to return, after all it’s less than 3 hours away from London which is about 2 hours less than a trip to Glasgow (my home town), another city where the natives speak a foreign language

Paris got bumped up my must visit list when I discovered a new website called Le Nouveau Paris which is a dream come true for a lazy planner like me.  Quite simply it’s a selection of over 250 venues: museums , monuments, unusual places and more than 700 events per year: festivals, concerts and exhibitions.  It also has a series of guides and routes to help you discover Paris according to your interests.  I love the personal folder option.  As you browse the site and see places you like you can add them to your folder so you don’t forget them and then create your own personalised itinerary.  The site also encourages your language enhancement, although I signed up in English, some of the emails and on site messages are in French.  No problemo for Mr Omneo and his vast collection of dictionaries

The Comité Régional du Tourisme of Paris Ile-de-France asked a selection of bloggers to conjure up their vision of that New Paris and to stop us going crazy set an imaginary budget of €1,000.  Now, I could probably spend that all by myself having dinner but they want it stretched out a bit further than the 20 meals I’d have in honour of Mr Jorrocks!  So using their site I planned a weekend break for myself and my imaginary partner where we’d spend our imaginary €1,000.

As I’m spending imaginary money I, of course, decided to blow half the budget on 2 nights at the lovely looking Hotel de Buci which is a boutique hotel with only 24 rooms in the Latin Quarter, 2 nights with breakfast comes to exactly €500, I think I may have to cut down on those imaginary meals!  However as it’s located between the Louvre, Notre Dame de Paris cathedral, the Sorbonne University, Musée d’Orsay and the Jardin du Luxembourg it means there’s lots to see on the hotel’s doorstep so that will save transport costs and walking through the cobblestoned streets will burn off all those imaginary meals I’m going to indulge in

To start the weekend off my imaginary partner and I would conserve our imaginary euros by checking out some street art.  Until 10 January the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain has an exhibition entitled Born in the Streets and according to FatCap there are almost 500 works of street art to be found at a total cost of €0… Mr Omneo likes free! In the evening it would be dinner and music at Bizz’art before a slow walk back to the hotel for a nightcap in preparation for Sunday!

Being a bit of a jazz fan and given Paris’s long association with jazz and jazz musicians this turned out to be a harder process than I thought.  Thanks to sites Jazz Guide I discovered there is a Miles Davis retrospective being held at the Cité de la Musique so that’s a must do activity probably followed by a leisurely lunch at A La Poule au Pot.  After lunch it would be a metro journey over to L’Entrepôt which is an arts centre with exhibitions, cinema, live music and quelle surprise!  a restaurant! Mmmmm… After that it’s probably time to unwind with a drink and a boogie and by my reckoning Djoon sounds like the ideal place.

Phew! After all that in one weekend Mr Omneo is in need of a holiday.  Paris sounds good, who’s coming?

No, instead my Record Shop is stocked with some of the Sellaband albums that I helped fund.  Having thought for many a long month about designing a website to sell them I stumbled upon a site, Big Cartel, that actually provides in their free offering exactly what I wanted.  So in under 30 minutes I had it stocked to the virtual rafters with the limited edition Cd’s by Lunic, Julia Marcell and T-Ka.  Job done!

I’ve helped fund a few albums in this way but my biggest investment so far is in Kaitee and Lunic which probably explains why I have a box of 45 CDs sitting next to my desk.  A few months ago I told myself I would get my finger out and construct a website to sell them on but as you can guess I haven’t got much further than thinking about it.   This will change but as I’m working on some client sites it’s probably going to be early 2010 before I get the time to do it. You can now buy it directly from my Record Shop

Lunic are currently based in New York, which is a shame as I miss getting to see Kaitee and the band perform live however you can hear Kaitee explain the whole process of making Lovethief in this short video, not a great substitute for the real thing but it’s better than nothing

Now, before you rush off to buy a copy of Lunic’s debut Sellaband album Lovethief, I’m giving away 10 copies.  So, if you’d like to get your hands on one leave a comment below telling me what your favourite musical act is and why you like them.

Bonus Entry: If you tweet this blog post on Twitter you will go into a separate draw giving you another chance of winning however you must comment here to qualify for the Twitter draw, so remember to include your Twitter username at the end of your comment so I know to include you in the draw.

I’ll be selecting 5 winners from the comments left here and 5 from the Twitter tweets, the competition closes at midnight Wednesday 16 December 2009 and is open to all residents of planet Earth. There is no closing date, it effectively ends when I have given away 10 copies of Lovethief.  Remember, you can enter from any country in the world, as long as you have a postal address, I will send it to you.

Don’t be too dismayed if you don’t win, you can buy a limited edition copy of Lovethief from Sellaband for $15 but why buy a copy when you can win one directly from me?  Good luck!