Osymyso in Dire Straits

No, no, no, I don't mean Osymyso has joined forces with Mark Knopfler. After posting my heartfelt plea for everyone to help a poor, struggling mash-up artist shift a few records, I have since discovered via Osymyso's Myspace page that things are not quite so bleak at the moment for the fella. It appears that he has been working on the soundtrack for the latest cinematic masterpiece from Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, Hot Fuzz.

But you still need to go and buy some of his music. (And I'm looking at you, Suw Charman. Yes, Osymyso is a favourite of your beloved Simon Pegg. Mr. Pegg even performed drumming duties on the track Pandemonium from the Fruit From 50-First Batch record. So, if you don't buy any Osymyso music, dear Suw, you are effectively saying Simon Pegg is wrong. You wouldn't say such a thing, would you Suw? You don't hate Simon Pegg, do you? Prove that you don't hate Simon Pegg and buy some music by his good chum Osymyso).

No, there is no level to which I won't stoop.

Save Osymyso!

I first heard about Osymyso a few years ago through his collaborations with Chris "Brass Eye/The Day Day Today" Morris. He produced a remix of Morris' merciless re-edit of George Bush's first State Of The Union speech (which you can find at www.thesmokehammer.com) and also a video remix of the short film My Wrongs#8245-8249 & 117.

Osymyso has been described as "one of the greatest cut & paste men of contemporary times". In 1998 he created Pat 'n' Peg, a brilliant breakbeat cut-up of the Eastenders theme tune with Peggy Mitchell and Pat Butcher having a right old bitchfight over the top. It's hilarious, a work of mad genius. He has released two cut-up albums, Welcome To The Palindrome and The Art Of Flipping Channels, and in 2005 he started the "05my50" project by committing himself to write and record one new track every week during that year. This has resulted in two excellent releases (or "batches") on vinyl entitled Fruit From 50.

He has won critical acclaim from The Guardian, The Face, The New York Times and Q magazine voted him one of the Top Ten DJs You Must See Before You Die. High praise indeed.

I finally got around to buying some of his tunes when I stumbled across them at an online download store and it is all superb. Welcome To The Palindrome is an album of funky beats, squelchy synths and cut-up samples from all sorts of TV shows and movies - an obvious inspiration for the likes of The Avalanches and Too Many DJs. The first two batches from the Fruit From 50 series are superbly quirky slices of electronic music that prove that Osymyso isn't a one-trick cut-up pony. Anyone who enjoys the offbeat style of Luke Vibert (aka Wagon Christ, Plug, etc.) or Mike Paradinas (he of µ-Ziq, Jake Slazenger and Kid Spatula fame) would love Fruit From 50. And Pat 'n' Peg is just so damn funny it hurts. Brilliant stuff. This man deserves to go far.

Imagine my disbelief when I visited Osymyso's website and read the following by the man himself on the forum:

It's been a tough few months, I'm fighting to keep the whole thing going. There isn't enough work out there and people aren't buying my records so I can't afford to produce any new music. Fruit From 50 vol 3 and 4 were ready to roll but the label had to pull the release due to lack of sales on the 1st 2 volumes. The Art of Flipping Channels was the worst selling record in Antidote's history so they won't touch me with a barge pole now and despite very positive feedback from my DJ sets I can't get a booking for toffee.

This is the reality of underground music production, without a label, a manager, an agent or a press officer I am left to do it all myself and it's very difficult to get things off the ground.

If I was a band I would have split up by now but I'm just me and splitting up would be way too messy. I still believe it's worth doing even if it means I have to live exist like a peasant in a mud hut, living off berries and insects.

What?! No, no, no, this simply will not do, will not do at all. Osymyso should be in huge demand. His music is funky, funny, strange, catchy and inventive. He should be inundated with requests to remix and produce mainstream pop acts looking to acquire some credibility and cool. He should be sniffing cocaine off Lilly Allen's buttocks in a hot tub. Well, OK, maybe not that last one but, dagnabbit, Osymyso should be at the height of underground success (if that isn't too much of an oxymoron).

What can be done? Well, for a start, go to www.osymyso.com and download Pat 'n' Peg for free. Once you have stopped laughing, go to Amazon.co.uk, Juno Records or your favourite music retailer and order anything/everything they have listed. If you have no means of playing vinyl records then fear not - Fruit From 50: First Batch and Second Batch can be bought and downloaded in MP3 format from Bleep.com (simply type "Osysmyso" into the search box to find his releases).

So come on everybody. Let's pull together and show Osymyso that there are people who want his music and will pay for it. If you don't then I will get very upset, come round to your house and nail you nipples to the ceiling. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Zadie Smith in The Guardian

There is a nice article in today's Guardian by Zadie Smith where she ponders the questions of what makes good writing, what do writers think of their own work, is writing an expression of the writer's self and do writers have a duty to their readers or vice versa. Some fascinating ideas for all of those with literary aspirations.

"Fail better" by Zadie Smith - The Guardian, Saturday 13 January 2007

Jobsworth

My attitude at work has been appalling this week. Talk about pedantic and apathetic, I just didn't give a fuck. It took me twice as long as usual to do anything and I made a point of phoning recruitment agencies to enquire about job opportunities when my the senior manager was within earshot.

"Hooray, only fifteen minutes to go," I said to him at 1.00 on Friday afternoon.

"Buggering off early, today?" he asked amiably.

I frowned and said, "No, because I've stopped smoking I'll have done my 37 hours for the week."

I actually stayed until 2.45pm so I could claim a bit of extra dosh (but still within the 40 hour limit, of course).

"I'm going soon," I told one of the housing association call centre girls over the phone.

"What? Why are you skiving off early?"

"Oh, I'm not skiving. I've done my hours for the week."

"But who's going to answer the phone?"

"Uh, my supervisors are out but should be available on their mobile phones if you need anything."

"What if we can't get them?"

"Sorry, not my problem." I then explained that I was wasn't being obnoxious to them (the call centre girls all love me and want me to be taken on permanently) but that I was making a point to my superiors.

"Mmm, I don't blame you. How stupid of them," she said.

"If you can't get hold of anyone and wish to complain that there is nobody here in the office to take your calls for the next two hours, feel free to make it formal."

One of my supervisors has been reassuring me that he is trying to move things along with regards to making my job permanent and saying how horrible it would be for them to have to take on someone new, an unknown quantity, and train them up from scratch. However, my behaviour this week has been so blatantly jaded and critical that he must now suspect that the likelihood of me accepting a permanent role or even applying for it is minimal. Even though I have not secured any alternate employment yet, I feel demob-happy. One way or another, I'm not going to be there much longer.

Thank you for not smoking

I always thought those "Thank you for not smoking" signs in shops, restaurants or whatever were a bit presumptuous: after all, how do the people who put the sign up know that you are not smoking?

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I quit smoking. I always knew that I had it in me to give up the cancer sticks if only I had the right motivation - falling in love with a beautiful woman who was willing to let me insert parts of myself in her but only if I gave up the fags, for example. But the motivation turned out be something altogether different.

During the whole vindictive-psycho-work-colleague saga, one of the things that came to the attention of the senior management was that I was claiming about 45-47 hours a week. Well, yes, my supervisors liked me to be in at 7.30-7.45am so that someone would be in the office when the repair operatives started their day and I would often stay until 5.00pm because we are contractually obliged to the housing association we work for to man the phones until then. I didn't want to work 9 or so hours a day but, as a temp paid by the hour, I wanted to claim all the time I could.

But then the senior managers caught on and told me that I shouldn't be working much more than 37 hours a week. That's fine in theory but it is impossible to cover both the start and end of the working day that my supervisors would like me to if I can only work seven hours a day unless I take a two hour lunch break.

That was not all. Because the senior management wanted to appear to be following procedures to the letter with regard to vindictive-psycho-work-colleague's complaints against me, they decided to make an example of me. In theory, all permanent members of staff are supposed to knock ten minutes off their flexi-time for every cigarette break. This rule is not enforced by any of the managers but the powers that be decided that they would impose this rule on me for the sake of appeasing psycho-colleague. This meant that I would have to deduct half an hour a day. Therefore, in order to get paid for 37 hours a week I would actually have to be at the office for about 40 hours. Even so, this still wouldn't cover the hours a day that my supervisors would like me to be in the office. But the senior managers had spoken.

As I relaxed at my parents' house, not smoking, it occurred to me that if I didn't smoke then I could claim every minute that I spent at work. Effectively, I could work half an hour less a day. Upon my return to work, I took my line manager aside and asked what the absolute maximum number of hours a week I could claim.

"37 hours... no more than 40," he said.

So then I informed him that I would be doing half an hour less a day because I've given up smoking.

"Oh, congratulations," he said.

"But who is going to answer the phones until 5.00 if you go home early?" asked my supervisors when I started packing up at 4.15.

"Well, you have three choices: One, I start early and leave early; two, start later and leave later; three; start when you'd like me to start and finish when you'd like me to finish but that would mean that I'd have done my allotted weekly hours by 10.00 on Friday morning. You decide."

I've always known that I should give up smoking but lacked any real desire to do so. In the end it wasn't the smell or the expense or the myriad hideous health risks that motivated me to quit, it was sheer bloody spite for my employers. Isn't it sad that the thought of one day puking up a tar-ridden lung wasn't enough to convince me to pack in smoking but the desire to piss off my bosses was?

Rest assured that the hunt for gainful employment has resumed with great vigour.

Crimbo stash

Sod peace and love to all humankind: Christmas is about getting cool pressies. In a manner of speaking, I didn't actually get any. I sent my Amazon wish list to the the parents as per usual (they have long since given up any pretence of knowing what books, films and music I like) but due to a technical difficulty that arose from trying to install Internet Explorer 7, my dad's computer simply refused to log into any secure sites which meant no online shopping. Seeing as there was no way he would be able to find any of the stuff I asked for in any of the local consumer outlets in the parents' little corner of Devon, I ended up getting a cheque on Christmas Day accompanied by many humble apologies. (Actually, Dad could have probably got a fair selection of the stuff on my wish list if he had popped into Exeter but he didn't think of that).

But never mind. Cheque was paid into bank account, stuff was ordered (managed to get around Dad's inability to use secure sites by installing Firefox on his computer - fixed the problem immediately) and most of it was waiting on my doormat today when I returned to Oxford.

So, here is the booty I have treated myself to:

• Lost Highway 2 Disc Special Edition DVD
• Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? 2 Disc Special Edition DVD
• Don't Look Now Special Edition DVD
• Mirrormask DVD
• The City Of Lost Children DVD (the edition which finally includes the subtitled French language version so you don't have to suffer the awful, awful, awful English dubbing)
• The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

And because all of the above were available dirt cheap in various winter sales, I still have some Crimbo dosh left to play with. I predict a pleasant Sunday afternoon browse of Oxford's bookshops and music emporiums tomorrow. Nice one.

2007!

It's now over a week since Boxing Day and I still don't have the overwhelming urge to buy a new sofa or kitchen despite the onslaught of TV commercials trying to convince me otherwise. Presumably this makes me some kind of communist enemy of democracy but what can you do?

Anyway, how was the whole Christmas palaver for you? I've had a rather lovely time myself mostly because I have been able to sleep in late and not go to work. It's amazing that when I lived with my parents in a sleepy Devon village for four years I nearly went totally insane with boredom and an horrible feeling of isolation but to visit for a week or two is tantamount to bliss. When the conversations between my mum and grandma have become a little too "Daily Mail" for my liking I have simply plugged myself into my MP3 player and dozed off on the sofa. I even gave up smoking by accident.

Before the Christmas break, I discovered that I had quite a bit of outstanding holiday from my recruitment agency to take before 15 January so, in addition to the Christmas week when the council is closed, I also booked the this first week of the New Year off - a full two week break! That's the longest amount of time I have taken off in one go for two years. I do so hope that they are coping without me. Bollocks to 'em if they aren't.

So, I am still here in Devon doing absolutely fuck all and it is heaven. I'll maybe post something about my Christmas stash and New Year's resolutions when I finally get up tomorrow. Nighty night.