Psychology, Fish and Chips and a Shooting Range: This Week in Manchester

Manchester Electronic Collective Meetup group, set up some months ago, has closed. I never met with them, but I gather the emphasis was on house music and electronica in Manchester – both nights out and the production of the music. If people want house music nights, I’ve ran at least one on Manchester Nightlife to Off the Square. I’m planning on running more house meetups over the coming months. 

But for this week, Manchester Psychology Social Group meet again in Hinterland The theme for the night: Mindfulness. The NHS describes this as 'paying attention to what is going on inside and outside ourselves, moment by moment.' 

Sad times for Manchester food and music: Northern Quarter’s Hip Hop Chip Shop has closed their outlet. The team behind the iconic blend of old school rap and traditional British fish and chips are moving on, citing economic issues.

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There is one more opportunity to try this out this Sunday. After announcing closure on the 6th this month, there hasn’t been an update, so I don’t know the timings exactly, but I have uploaded a meetup. Obviously, because there’s no meeting time, group members haven’t RSVPd. 

I mentioned Social MCR a few weeks ago, an online / in person social group. They’re meeting in virtual shooting range Point Blank, on Deansgate, on Thursday. I have been meaning to visit the bar, so who knows. Cocktail deals, target practice, meet new people. I still haven’t met with this group, so it would be interesting to try out. You could too.

Valentines Single Mingle

Valentines. The perfect night for single people. Everyone in relationships are staying in, or at the restaurant, meaning everyone in the bar… is single. 

Over the years I’ve always been bemused as to why no events companies have capitalised on this and put something on for the singles. Well, local events company Single Mingle have provided that, and last Friday a group of mates – all formed through my Manchester Nightlife group – booked in on their event in Barca, Castlefield. 

Well, most of us did. I meant to buy a ticket. I pinned the email from the corresponding Meetup event, then for some reason thought it was a ticket that I’d bought (which I hadn’t). 

I got down to the venue and, at the last minute, realised the mistake I’d made. Thankfully, there was one men’s ticket left. My phone seemed to mess me about at first, not taking the payment, but eventually I checked the ticket app and there it was. Scanned. In. 

Stress. 

I was handed a padlock on a lanyard, as were all the gents. The ladies all got keys on theirs, a reversal of the lock-and-key night. Some of the keys open some of the locks. You’ve just got to keep trying. And so the innuendo rolls out: ‘bit too chunky for me, that one…’ give cheeky wink. You can imagine. Until, of course, there’s a match. When there’s a match, you both head to the DJ booth and your name is taken down to be entered into a prize draw. You’re given a new lock / key, and the night continues. So, even if someone isn’t your type, it’s still worth trying to unlock, as there’s more chance your name will be pulled out if it’s in more than once. 

Eventually, after a lot of chatting, it was time to pull the prizes. For each prize, 2 names were drawn. Who wins? Well… it depends who wins the dance-off. Yup. The DJ spins a track. The contestants have 60 seconds each to display their moves. Whoever gets the loudest cheer wins the prize. Of course, my name gets pulled. Now, I’ve not danced a great deal in the last 15 years or so, but I bust out the moves from the old days including my signature ‘hangman’ move – and figuratively slaughtered the girl I danced against. I may not have the best chat as an anxious fortysomething, but I can dance. Well, make your own mind up. Here’s the Insta highlight. 

Sorry, hun. Looks like I’m going for afternoon tea for 2 at Manchester’s Holiday Inn. (The venue is for some reason already following me on Instagram.) 

Some of the prizes were better than this, including £100 and £200 lump sums. 

But what about potential matches? Thats' the point of the event (and what you want to hear, I expect).  There were a couple of girls there that I liked, but I didn’t get signals back from either of them, as far as I could tell. Maybe I didn’t give them enough chance. I dunno. 

So yeah, no solid connection on the night, but what a night regardless.

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Nunchucks Month

Time to learn these bad boys. #nunchuks pic.twitter.com/Uv5qpB6ZKU

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) February 20, 2025

 

What are nunchucks? ‘Nunchucks, or nunchaku, are a traditional East-Asian martial arts weapon consisting of two sticks (traditionally made of wood), connected to each other at their ends by a short metal chain or a rope. It is approximately 30cm or 12 inches (sticks) and 2.5cm or 1 inch (rope). A person who has practiced using this weapon is referred to in Japanese as nunchakuka.’ – Wiki. 

Some time around the end of 2009, I trekked from Oldham to Stockport’s Decathlon to buy these nunchucks that I’d seen there a few years prior. It had been my plan at the time to spend a bit of time dabbling with them and seeing what I could pick up. I was training in Mixed Martial Arts at the time, so I was a little bit immersed in that world, but I never studied kung fu, karate or any of the disciplines that use nunchucks as a staple. 

I dabbled with a few YouTube videos and learned how to rotate the chucks around my torso in a few ways, but never solidly got the hang of them. 

I turned 42 last July, and decided I’d put together some plans for the year. One of these was to eventually get around to learning the basics of nunchucks, culminating in a video displaying what I’d learned. Why? Just for fun. I’m never going to use it anywhere else. A bit of upper body toning. Expand the mind a little. That kind of thing. 

I’d also – shock – like to get fitter through this, so I figured I’d keep in theme and try out some eastern recipes, mostly from Rukmini Iyer’s books, cut out the junk food and alcohol and try to - once again – get down to 72kg. I’m currently 78. 

Here’s an example of a solid, simple instruction video. Matt Pasquinilli gets straight into it.

 

I’ll upload my own at the end of the month’s project. The emphasis on learning, and fighting food cravings, makes this perfect for #psychologysaturday.

Hinterland or Box?

On the blog: 

A dating event with some ups and downs, a review of a mental-health-themed social media platform and a film-themed book review. 

In Manchester: 

International backpacking org WeRoad meet in Box Bar Deansgate, Friday night, 7pm. I expect the upper level of Box will have been set aside for us. I’ve not been to a WeRoad in Box yet. I’m going to shoot in and promote the Manchester Nightlife meetup and this blog. Hopefully there’ll be food like last time. 

Another Meetup group, Manchester Electronic Collective, closes down today. Their emphasis seems to have been House and Electronica events, perhaps with a slight emphasis on the production of the music. A lot of it was nights out to clubs too. I never attended. The latter of these, my Meetup group Manchester Nightlife covers. We went to Off the Square and Exhibition previously, so if you’re looking for a group to fill the void… 

Last week on Thursday, when I was running the Manchester Psychology Social Group, an attendee brought up another group also using alcohol-free vegan bar Hinterland as their base. Wisdom Way offers a chance to ‘gently discuss the deeper aspects of our living experiences - our inner journey.’ It seems to be very philosophy – oriented, something I’ve only briefly come across in psychology books. I’ll give it a shot: there could be good psychology content for a Saturday post. Who knows what I – or you - might learn. Sunday, 11am. 

So yeah, a wisdom group, and a group getting pissed in chav-central Box. Talk about yin and yang.

Almost Vader

A few weeks ago, burger chain Almost Famous went belly up – insolvent – and they sacked hundreds of workers without notice. It’s a shame, for the workers first of all, on low wages as it was, without being made redundant. But the burgers, from the one time I went, I recall were decent. 

Sadly that memory is tainted by circumstance: being stalked by a low-EQ older bloke and coerced into some kind of double date with him, his wife and a totally unsuitable girl who had been checking me out for months – even when she was in a relationship herself. The whole situation I detailed last July. I don’t speak to any of them any more. Lots of other, usually standalone, burger joints have opened and closed as the country recovers from the pandemic. Byron was another chain. Handmade Burger Co. Karen’s Diner. Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Jamie’s Italian. Plenty of other types of restaurants like fitness food joints: Kettlebell Kitchen, and a couple of similar ones in Oldham and Manchester that have long since fallen out of my mind. It’s tough out there. 

In other news, Spencer Wilding - Darth Vader in The Last Jedi – liked my picture of him on Insta. 

I also got 6K likes on this jokey comment.

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New Ideas with Manchester Psychology Social Group

Gobi Manchurian burger and onion rings in Hinterland Thursday pic.twitter.com/19VX1LZ5OV

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) February 15, 2025

 

I revived Manchester Psychology Social Group, the meetup group I was running towards the end of last year in Hinterland, a vegan alcohol-free bar in The Northern Quarter. 

In November things started to die off a bit with the group, so I cancelled the meetings for the foreseeable at that time. 

February rolled around and I emailed the group to ask for their ideas. What worked? What didn’t? Feedback from the group suggested it was too late in the evening and involved a little too much hanging around until 7:30pm. (I’d ran it that late as it was the earliest I could get there after a gym class.) We also needed more ideas, more structure to the group and more plans for the future of it. Plus, it was getting cold, and Christmas was around the corner. It just wasn’t the right time. January I was busy with Veganuary, and following recipes, (plus it was freezing and everyone was broke) so as February rolled around it was time to bring people together again. 

I set up another meetup for Thursday, 6:30pm. We had a good crowd in the main room as something was happening in the back room where we’d previously set up. Some kind of poetry night was on (that I’d have liked to have got involved with had I known). But we had enough space and enough time to order, eat, chat, arrange a structure, and come up with ideas. Among these: When uploading the meetup, I’ll advertise the topic in the on the event page, and make the title a little better and more intriguing. 

Next meeting: Same place and time, Thursday 27th.

Feersum Endjinn

I found this little Iain M Banks SF novel in an Oxfam months ago, and started reading it pretty much straight away. 

It’s set in a far-flung future in which the higher echelons of society live in humongous castles, public policy is dictated by some moving stones, and a local count (like a mayor) oversees the land, known as ‘The Fastness.’ Only problem is, someone keeps assassinating him. He manages to revive himself by backing up his entity to some kind of national electronic platform, as do most people, but that platform – as I understand it – is under threat from The Encroachment, a giant interstellar cloud that’s about to wipe them all out. Bascule the Teller – a clerical dude with an apparent learning difficulty and what I interpreted to be a heavy Yorkshire accent – is tasked with contacting dead people on their families’ behalf. He has a pet ant called Egretes, that is abducted by a giant metallic eagle, and is determined to find said pet, a creature that seems to understand him. But first, he must climb the tower in the hope of reaching a control room, to direct the whole planet away from The Encroachment. 

There’s so, so much more to it than this. Bascule’s dialect really slows down the pace at which I could read it. Every sentence has to be absorbed carefully to interpret it and the perspective of the book keeps jumping around between characters and first and third perspectives. 

It’s certainly not where I’d advise people to start out with Iain M Banks. Endlessly inventive but hard, hard work.

Oldham Library Writers Group

Social Prescribing advised me that this writing group was meeting monthly in Oldham Library, so I figured I’d try out Oldham Library Writers Group session on 4th February. Haven’t been to a writers session since some time before the pandemic, and haven’t written anything creative since some time before that meeting, but I figured I’d at least attend and see what the deal was with this new group and whether it would be worthwhile. 

Gonna blow my own trumpet here: I’ve been writing for some time and I’ve had bits of things published here and there. I don’t claim to be particularly good at many things, but I can write. If I’m going to go to a writers’ group, I’m going to want to be surrounded by people who are going to push me to be better, and they need to be good too. 

Oldham Library Writers Group are a well intentioned bunch, but I didn’t feel like they were going to help me to improve. 

We did do an interesting writing exercise, though, in which we all had a sheet of paper each and started with the line, ‘He woke up to find the city deserted.’ We wrote for a few minutes, then when the timer went we passed the sheet on. Each iteration was the same length of writing time but with an increasing extended period beforehand to read over what had been written so far. It was difficult as nobody’s handwriting – not even my own block capitals – were clear enough for other people to read. There were, if I’ve got this right, 9 of us in the session, so the story below is written buy all the members of the group. We then read each story out, each member reading the story that they started to write. 

I've typed out the piece featuring the opening section I wrote, and I've included an asterisk page break to show where the next person took over. 

-- 

He woke up to find the city deserted. His back hurt from sleeping on the concrete bollard blocking the road, although he had no recollection of climbing onto it. He was very thirsty and his head pounded. 

* 

Thoughts of the night before invaded his mind. Too much alcohol, he thought. Oh, why did he have to drink so much? He hadn’t a clue of why he’d ended up here, and pondered why there was no-one else around. He picked himself up. His back was wet from sleeping in a puddle, his legs cold – one of his socks was missing. He felt a bruise on his arm. Was that mustard on his shirt? 

* 

He sniffed the shirt, not mustard, but something unpleasant. His nose wrinkled. ‘Oof.’ He spied the empty burger wrapper by his feet and heard his stomach growl in protest. A wave of nausea hit him then. 

* 

He was gross. The city may be empty, his life might be desolate but he needed to get his act together. “Ugh.” He slowly dragged himself to his feet and dragged himself forward. His body ache in places he did not know he could ache. 

* 

“Let’s do it,” he said to himself. “Let’s go.” 

He didn’t know where he was going but actually moving physically was the best he could do. Somewhere in his psyche he knew that getting up would motivate him. 

* 

Where was he going? Who knows? Because he sure as hell didn’t. This is what life has come to? The endless self-deprecation questions swirled in his head, but life had challenged him every step of the way, and he always had a trick up his sleeve – he just needed to know what game this was. 

* 

He would not give up. So much was depending on him.

  – 

I think we really needed a little more time to flesh out the narrative each iteration. But most of the stories from this session followed the same 28-Days-Later theme. 

The next session is Tuesday, 18th February.

Psychology Social, Valentines, Social MCR - Get Involved

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Busy week on the psychology front for me. I’ve a ton of meetings to do with memory and mental health, featuring different public services, some parts of which I’ll share here if I think it will help others, other parts I won’t. 

I’ve revived my Manchester Psychology Social Group. If you fancy some science chat with vegan food in a non-alcohol atmosphere, come down to Hinterland in the Northern Quarter on Thursday, 6:30pm. I’ve switched days and made it a little earlier as that seemed to be the issue with attendance previously. I have loads of ideas for the group – things I want to ask people, ideas we can try, etc. etc. If you want some tasty vegan grub and engaging psychology chat, please get involved. 

Valentines Day is Friday. I’m at some kind of singles mingles night. Don’t buy a hat just yet, but who knows. I’m more than likely just going to use it as an attempt to recruit people to my meetup events. 

A member of Manchester Nightlife, my Meetup group, pointed me in the direction of Social MCR, an online social community that have met in person once so far. I wasn’t there at the time as I was running my own meetup, but I’m planning to join them on another outing soon. There’s an event planned at Point Blank, the shooting range on Deansgate, on 27th February. But there’ll doubtlessly be other things before then. I’d signed up through the site and was dropped into an introductory WhatsApp chat in which the rules and structure of the group were explained. Then I had the option to join different chats like Unfiltered (edgy humour), TV and Film, Event Suggestions (where we can chime in with our own ideas) Gym and Fitness and Food & Drink. 

Chats have been going reasonably well on these groups, but today the organisers have decided to move the discussions over to Discord, which as I understand is kinda a blend of WhatsApp and Reddit, allowing for discussions to take place like a tree diagram, with different replies stemming off from other replies. I’m getting my head around it. There is a Bongo’s Bingo night planned but it’s already sold out. 

There are other nights. 

Also, on the blog: a book review, a writing exercise and a recipe review.

Pizza in Circle Square, Brassic Filming in Chinatown, House Music in Ashton

. @weroad_official social in Taphouse Symphony Square #Manchester Friday. Can't say no to free pizza. This area used to be the BBC building. So different to 20 years ago pic.twitter.com/mIbo5wZ4wt

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) February 9, 2025

 

Went to the WeRoad social (event organised by the international backpacking brand) in Manchester Friday night. Taphouse in Symphony Park played host, serving up giant margarita pizzas (that were quickly demolished by the famished guests, including myself). Nice bar, automated serving system was a bit complicated though if all you want is a soft drink. Dished out a few blog cards, promoted my own meetup groups. 

Followed a subset group to the nearby Revolution then called it a night. 

Had a stroll around town. Found a film set: the latest series of Brassic was under way on George St in Chinatown. 

 

More Brassic filming in Manchester tonight pic.twitter.com/qhlNe8vNbe

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) February 8, 2025

 

Saturday night: Ran a Manchester Nightlife meetup to Ashton, in particular Nico Ditch, for Connect, a night of house music. My good friend Paul Smith was DJing with a few others. Small venue, but we packed out. Friendly faces everywhere. One attendee came out – great to introduce her to people. 

 

Connect. House music night in Nico Ditch Ashton Under Lyne last night. Great vibes pic.twitter.com/dS4JeJGasT

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) February 9, 2025

 

Finally got around to trying the local steakhouse, The Edge. Great food tonight. 

 

#Veganuary is long over. Finally got to the new steakhouse near me, The Edge. Took the parents. My treat. My order: 10oz ribeye, whisky sour, beef dripping chips, garlic and herb butter, cinnamon churros with Nutella sauce. pic.twitter.com/RUBWOXHcnC

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) February 9, 2025

 

A busy week. Glad things are - literally and figuratively – warming up.

Black Pepper Fennel Prawns

From Rukmini Iyer’s India Express: South Indian-Style Black Pepper & Fennel Prawns. 

I used dried coriander and ginger, not fresh. I’d never get through it all otherwise. I thought I had cumin seeds. Seems not. Well, I’ve subsequently bought some. Ground cumin sufficed. Should have taken 30 mins, took me 42. 

It came out very spicy, but that’s how I like it.

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Food is on the agenda this week.

Food and house music. And more. Now Veganuary is over, and I’m not hammering the chin-ups so much, I’m mixing in a few other events to brighten up my routine. You might want to get involved too. Here we go… 

Tuesday night: a new writers group opens at Oldham Library. Not sure if it has a defined name yet. I’m gonna take a look.

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I’m going for a steak with the family Wednesday night. 

Friday night: free pizza at the WeRoad social. The Taphouse in Symphony Park holds host to the Meetup, out on Oxford Road where the BBC used to be. A great chance to meet new people, eat, try new bars. The WeRoad brand is popular with backpacker types travelling the world. I’m going to dish out some blog cards. Try to recruit people for my own Meetups.

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Saturday night: a good friend of mine is DJing in Nico Ditch in Ashton. Join the Manchester Nightlife Meetup for Connect, a night of house music in a different venue out of the city. Expect electronica, friendly vibes, low priced ales and a slightly more matured, chilled crowd.