Friday night sees tech house producer Halina Rice play at New Century, the new music venue in Manchester centre. Manchester Nightlife has a meetup running there. Expect electronic vibes, trippy CGI visuals and your regular warm Manchester house music crowds including, at present, 4 of us from the Meetup group. It’s an early one, starting at 6:30pm.
We still need a meeting point. Any suggestions?
I left that Adopted Family group chat. Not my kind of people, plus have my own group to develop.
Still haven’t met with the original Manchester Social group that they left.
Ran my own meetup to Brotherhood bar near the Town Hall, to watch UFC. Taking place in London, this time the main card was on at a reasonable hour and a handful from Manchester Nightlife showed up to watch the fights. Disappointing night for Brits as both Leon Edwards and Molly McCann were beat. The latter retired. Good venue and crowd. Some familiar and new faces from the meetup group.
In other news, Katrina Bowen from Tucker & Dale vs Evil liked my photo of her.
What are nunchucks? They’re an eastern martial arts weapon predominantly used in kung fu and karate. They’re ‘two sticks (traditionally made of wood), connected to each other at their ends by a short metal chain or a rope. It is approximately 30 cm or 12 inches (sticks) and 2.5 cm or 1 inch (rope). A person who has practiced using this weapon is referred to in Japanese as nunchakuka (ヌンチャク家, nunchakuka).’ - Wiki.
I guess I’m a nunchakuka now.
A month ago I explained I was going to practice the basics, and upload a video of the results. I’ve dug out a pair of Decathlon foam covered training nunchucks and spent a month dabbling around with them, following Youtube instruction mostly from Florida-based sensei Matt Pasquillini.
I’ve learned a few basic moves like the Outer Orbital, Down and Up, the Bruce Lee Triangle, the Hand Pass, Figure 8, Underhand Pass, Deflecting Strike, Rip Roll, Under Arm Catch and a combination of a few of these. I made a demo of the things I learned, in which I predictably forget several of the moves because I for some reason didn’t copy them all down. The ones I missed out are basically warm-up moves. What’s included are the things I needed time to develop.
Also, I followed a few healthy recipes and did cut out a lot of junk. Went from 78kg to 76.2. Sigh. Fighting cravings, learning and focussing on a new task, learning new recipes… all of these tie into psychology, hence this post goes up on #psychologysaturday.
An interesting, fun and utterly pointless project. Looks good though.
The Name’s Kindersley, Dorling Kindersley.
Encyclopedia Kings Dorling Kindersley turned their hand to the James Bond franchise in 2007, and in 2023 I found it in a 2nd hand charity shelf in Tesco. I must have started reading it in September at the latest last year and finished it this week. Alongside, I’d been reading other, more compact and physically lighter books that were better for travelling.
Even so, The James Bond Encyclopedia is a large, weighty investigation into the movie franchise – very pictorial but also hugely expansive and well-researched.
The book’s broken down into chapters on author Ian Fleming, who Bond is, his style, his role, villains he faced, women, supporting cast, vehicles, weapons & equipment and the movies themselves.
I’m sure I’ve seen all the Bond movies but there’s so much in the films that I don’t remember, or hadn’t latched onto. It’s also surprising how a huge role in a Bond film doesn’t necessarily pluck an actor from obscurity. After playing the titular Dr No in the original Bond adventure, what did Canadian actor Joseph Wiseman do? Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is the only credit I recognise. So many Bond girls didn’t seem to make a name for themselves either. Shirley Eaton portrayed Jill Masterson in Goldfinger, famously dispatched by asphyxiation through gold paint to the body. Aside from a couple of episodes of the TV show The Saint, her filmography is very short and obscure. Also, did you know Minnie Driver was a talentless singer in Goldeneye?
A must for Bond fans.
Was locked out of the Blogger platform so couldn’t blog. No idea why. Just managed to unlock it. Locked out of X on desktop, still works on the phone though. Locked out of Primary Facebook on desktop – I never managed to get on Facebook on my new phone, which I’ve had a few months. It was my plan to blog about moving over to Samsung, too. This A55 is serving me well, unlike my decrepit PC.
Anyway, I’ve tried going through the verification process, sending my ID to Facebook as asked, but it’s asking me to use an ‘authenticator app’ which I’ve just downloaded. I’ve no idea what to do with this, though. Instructions unclear. It’s asking me to add an account and a ‘secret key’- is this a Facebook account? What key?
FFS. And WHY is all this happening?!
James Duval, Frank the Bunny from Donnie Darko, liked my photo of him from For the Love of Horror.
Went to the new Louis bar in Spinningfields Friday. Doormen weren’t keen on my ripped jeans but the waistcoat and tie balanced it out so they made an exception. They placed a sticker over our phone cameras. No photography allowed, but notetaking was fine. A step above the opulence of your average Spinningfields bar, Louis carries a speakeasy 1920s vibe with lighting so dim you need your phone torch to read the menu. Pleasant staff served up whiskies that ranged between £12-£50.
Ran a meetup with Manchester Nightlife to Spinningfields Saturday, to a quiet but scenic rooftop bar 20 Stories and ended in Peaky Blinders. I was shattered and left not long after midnight. Good crowd. Some familiar faces, some new.
Saturday sees Monopoly Events’ Horror, Rock and Wrestle Fest – something to tide horror fans over until October when For the Love of Horror returns. I can’t say I’m that bowled over with the lineup, though.
No meetups planned as of yet. Even Meetup booted me out on desktop as I logged into that through Facebook. I want to fucking scream. I’m still logged in on the app but I can’t upload meetups there.
Saturday is the deadline for this absurd Nunchucks project. I haven’t done a great deal of it over the last few days but I was getting somewhere with a particularly complicated underarm pass. Hopefully I’ll be able to upload a demo video.
Saturday night: a group of 3 of us met at burger bar Super Awesome Deluxe in the Northern Quarter. Good burger and fries. Meetup with Manchester Nightlife that I nearly cancelled.
Further updates on this online social group I joined, and the breakaway group from this affectionately called the ‘Adopted Family’ - I met met with them a week ago on Saturday and they all seemed like good people. I was conscious that I’m already building communities with Manchester Nightlife and Manchester Psychology Social, but I figured I’d spent that long in a WhatsApp chat with them that I might as well meet face to face with a few of the group on a night out.
Sandinista was… Not my kind of place. I wasn’t sure I was really gelling. But I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Yesterday, I was attending a second meetup with Wisdom Way, a group about mindfulness and awareness. An interesting discussion about a poem called ‘There is no There,’ which may have had something to do with American Gertrude Stein, perhaps something she wrote or was inspired by it. Pleasant folk and good vegan hot chocolate in Northern Quarter’s Hinterland, but a bit too spiritual for me. I’m more into the hard science of psychology.
But anyway, I’d been to this group and was in town already, so figured I’d see this Adopted Family again.
At least the plan was to stay indoors this time (as opposed to freezing my balls off in Shambles Square), and get food in Home, the theatre and art exhibition in First Street. I got a pineapple juice, a chargrilled halloumi and double house salad, which cost me fifteen bastard quid. It was nice enough. The group were good people, well intentioned and everything. Some I’d met last time, some I’d seen come up in the WhatsApp chat. But I didn’t feel I had that much in common. The banter wasn’t flowing and I was fading into the background.
Then I paid, ducked out, went home and had a curry night with my actual family. We ordered in a ton of curries, shashlik, breads, saag aloo and rices. Better convo, food and prices, more to the point.
I’m still in this ‘Adopted Family’ WhatsApp chat, but for how long I don’t know.
Big Brother’s Jess Impiazzi liked my story. I wished her happy birthday.
So anyway. This is a Prospective Mondays post. What’s happening this week?
I still haven’t actually met with the original Manchester Social group, despite all their controversy. I noticed that, on Sunday this week, they’re heading to Grub’s East Asian Food Fair. Touted as an ‘annual celebration of East Asian Street Food, the event runs from 12pm to 6pm and features food from Beasty Baos, Wok Bros and Mary’s Cakery Makery. I honestly can’t remember exactly how I got into Manchester Social, but I’ve managed to share a link to allow others to join. I’m not sure how long it will be active.I gather it's a ticketed event. I might go.
https://t.co/t9nBKvF9cU Manchester Social Discord Server. Social events in the city
— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) March 10, 2025
Ironically, some of the people in this picture then went on to form the breakaway group that I later got invited to and went out with last night. But I’ll give this food fair a shot.
Before that, though - the night before - Manchester Nightlife meetup are out again, this time in Spinningfields. There are a handful of bars we've not been to there yet. 9pm Saturday, Oast House.
New Meetup group Wisdom Way opened last month, using vegan bar Hinterland as a meeting place. I met with them on the 23rd Feb for hot drinks at their Reflective Conversation event. The group describes itself as ‘an in-person group for those wishing to explore and gently discuss the deeper aspects of our living experiences - our inner journey.’
I’ve never formally studied philosophy so it was new ground for me (as was the vegan chilli hot chocolate; also recommended). We covered stoicism (being resilient to misfortune), and how we can apply it to our lives. Really interesting. Good group of people.
Next meeting is tomorrow, 9th March, 11am.
