Come Try Schofields Bar Saturday

Saturday night: come and try the new Schofields bar with Manchester Nightlife meetup. I’ve not been yet but I hear it’s good. It made no.6 in the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list from Franklin & Sons, hospitality experts. 

Cityscapes at Chotto Matte

 

Hit all the 3s on the blog this week. 3 million, 333 thousand, 333 page views. Hit 3 million at the end of August. Not bad work. 

Went to the new Chotto Matte Japanese Peruvian sky bar last night. Incredible décor and views of the city. Highly recommended. I wanna go back when I’m drinking, after this Santa Dash challenge.

Scenes from Chotto Matte Manchester last night. Incredible rooftop bar near the Town Hall

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) 8 November 2026 at 18:34

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) 8 November 2026 at 19:35

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) 8 November 2026 at 19:36

Great Flor de la Pasion mocktail, mostly women, house music, free cloakroom, helpful staff who gave me a hand with an Instagram query. Superb venue.

Law 26: Keep Your Hands Clean

 

One of the more slightly evil laws in Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power is the contentious Law 26: Keep Your Hands Clean.   

‘You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency: your hands are never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as scapegoats and cat’s paws to disguise your involvement.’ 

Way back in 2003 I was working in a really dodgy chav bar called Brannigans, on Manchester’s Peter St. Housed in the unit that now gives us Albert’s Schloss, Brannigans was your bargain-basement early naughties cheese-fest – not particularly cheap drinks but heaving with people, contemporary and older pop, strict door policy, frequent fights outside but never inside, some of the physically biggest doormen in Manchester centre and – coincidentally – occupying one of the most haunted buildings in Manchester, if you believe that.   

I did one shift on the bar, but after that, I was put on glass collecting duties, which I was much happier about.   

One night in particular, the bar was busier than usual – probably a Saturday. I remember it was Easter as one of my colleagues was also my flatmate, and he’d gone home for the 2-week break. Later, I gave him the details.   

That night, yeah, I was busy, but I hadn’t noticed the stress the bar staff were under. The customers couldn’t throw it down their necks fast enough. It was pre-credit crunch, under Labour, and a lot of people seemed to have plenty of disposable income. (Predictably, all that crashed once I graduated.) We weren’t allowed a break until the bar had closed, the demand was that constant. 

Once the customers were ferried out, half of us went to the break room. That’s when the complaints started. The shift was described as ‘horrible,’ with the serving demands more intense than any other Saturday.   After the break, we went back up to start the cleanup. One of the managers, some Blonde Woman, immediately pulled one of the bar girls to one side.  She was a young Swedish Girl. While the rest of us cleaned, Blonde Woman showed Swedish Girl the figures. Her till was down. By a long way. 

Right next to the bar she’d been serving in, Blonde Woman went in on Swedish Girl. She showed the employee the figures that were missing. “I’m going to give you one chance,” Blonde Woman said. “One chance to explain to me where this money is.” 

It wasn’t long before Swedish Girl had gone to get her coat and walked out. A Dark Haired Eastern European Girl got the same treatment. She was gone within minutes too. The rest of us finished the cleanup. 

Eventually, we sat down for the routing post-shift meeting. Blonde Woman basically went in on all of us. She explained she had to sack the 2 girls. They messed up. 

Meanwhile this Older Dude had joined the team a week before. He was maybe 40 with perhaps a Surrey accent, and had been working in insurance or some similar sit-down desk job. He’d been made redundant and ‘fancied a change,’ so had got into bar work. 

Blonde Woman congratulated Older Dude in the meeting. “Your till was £1 up last night and £1 down tonight. For your efforts you’ll be getting a bottle of wine.” 

Hmm. So, after the tills had supposedly been ripped off, they could still afford to give away bottles. The meeting concluded and we went home. 

A few weeks later, I was out in some bar in Manchester and bumped into Swedish Girl. “I didn’t do it,” was the first thing she said. I told her I knew that. There’s no reason she’d rip the bar off with another girl on the busiest night. Besides, where would she keep the stolen money? Blonde Woman was obviously covering her back. Swedish Girl was the scapegoat. 

As it happens, within a few weeks, Blonde Woman walked out of the job mid-shift on a busy Saturday night. 

So. If you're a manager, using scapegoats might cover your back for so long. But in the end, circumstances, or your own level of competence, will catch up on you. If you're an employee, be aware that when the heat is cranked up, someone above you might use you as a ‘cat’s paw’ to keep themselves from getting burned. 

Brannigans Manchester closed in 2011.

Hinterland Festival Begins

 

Thursday: Northern Quarter vegan alcohol free bar Hinterland begins their Hinterland Festival 2026 season with Creating a New Society. sounds a bit culty, but they’re a harmless group. What would a new society look like to you? That’s the theme. 

Friday: Lee Child, creator of Jack Reacher, is in Todmorden Hippodrome for the Todmorden Book Festival. I might get a ticket. 

Saturday Morning: Hinterland collab with Kontrast, a local sauna, for their Journaling event, 'Met Among Strangers.’ Meet, Write and Sauna. Journaling prompts, followed by 45 mins in the sauna. Bring your own swimwear, towels, writing materials and water. Tickets from £16. Tempted. 

Sunday morning: Hinterland combines their 2 regular events into 1 with Death Cafe X Journal Club. Free writing exercises with open candid discussion about the nature of death. Already sold out. 

I’m not planning to charge back into running my own meetups just yet as I’m hoping to see off an unfortunate bout of flu that stole my Halloween. So will I be at any of the above? Perhaps. Will I set up meetups next week? Probably. 

Expect a recipe on the blog. 

Santa Dash Prep '26

My big challenge for this month was to carve myself from the drunken mess that was the result of Excess Month 2026 Take 2, which resulted in me being a massive pisscan, into a T-1000-style running superhuman in preparation for the annual Saddleworth Santa Dash. This, a 5km race through the snowy Saddleworth foothills, is something I like to challenge myself to throughout November. The race tends to happen on the first Saturday of December. This year - 5th December - we’re expecting as many as 2600 Father Christmases to charge around the course, raising money for local charities. 

So, here’s the plan: Get from 82.9kg at present, to 72.2kg, in 5 weeks. It was my plan to have one last blow-out tonight – Halloween night – but sadly, I picked up some flu-like symptoms at the start of the week and I’m still coughing my bastard guts up like The Mask after Dorian’s henchman shoots him.

 

First off, rest. No more junk food, caffeine drinks or alcohol. Then, when I’m better, restart the gym classes. Run at the gym. Aim for a speed PB. Practice the local 5.4km route. Work on overhand chin-ups, underhand chin-ups and dips. Lots of soup, veg smoothies and lean recipes. 

So it begins...

Halloween week.

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Can’t stay in at Halloween no matter what. Hence Manchester Nightlife Meetup group will be out… somewhere. I know at least one other person is up for it. But to where? Peter St like last year? Deansgate? Go full on chav in The Printworks? Northern Quarter? Do they do Halloween there?

Excess Month 2026 Take 2: Week 4. Conclusion

None of these were full, but I managed to finish them all off in the month

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) 24 October 2026 at 17:36

Watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, about a con who’s trying to get out of work detail by pretending to be insane. His face/off against the tyrannical Nurse Ratched drives both of them near-on mentally ill anyway. Stacked cast, including Christopher Lloyd, who, need I remind you, I met at Comic Con Liverpool a few weeks ago. 

Followed this with Human Traffic, a classic from my university days. 5 mates (including the equally baby-faced John Simm and Danny Dyer) plan a drug-addled Saturday night out in late 90s Cardiff, featuring pills, cocaine, after parties, a giant venue, and Radio 1’s Carl Cox as a notorious club owner. Nice one, bruvva! 

Finished the Toffee Chocolate Ballycastle. Incredible liqueur. Drained the White Chocolate version after this. Also recommended. 

Then I watched Dog Soldiers for the first time in probably 20 years, taped on long play from Channel 5. It’s now considered a classic of werewolf movies, featuring a bunch of squaddies dropped into the Scottish Highlands for a routine training exercise… or so they’re told. There’s something out in those woods that’s ripped their compatriots apart, and now it’s coming for them. Great tension. Gritty screen quality as it was taped off TV in around 2005, transferred to DVD the following year and never watched since. Until… I met Sean Pertwee, Sgt Wells, also in Liverpool this month. 

The last day of this excess project is technically tomorrow, but I may as well end it here on the #psychologysaturday upload. The results: well, I’m 82.6kg, 800g up. I’ve made lots of space in my cupboard. I’ve drained 7 alcohol bottles, granted, not from full. I’ve uploaded 15 posts including this one, a fairly standard upload rate. I watched 13 films. I still have 5 DVDs that I’d planned to watch this month. Oh well. I’ve had some good times and some not so good times as the month has gone on. 

As Macho Man Randy Savage once said, I’ve soared with the eagles and I’ve slithered with the snakes.