Journal Club, Comic Con NE, Lee Child in Todmorden

A lot of travel this week. 

Wednesday: Journal Club returns to Hinterland in the Northern Quarter for a night of writing. There’s usually prompts, with 10 minute writing bursts and the opportunity to share your writing with the group. Meetup group Manc Mates are attending – there’s 2 of us at the time of writing. Hinterland is a great, cosy restaurant serving vegan food, no alcohol and a quiet atmosphere. The antidote to today’s hectic Manchester environment. 

I’ll be starting a new month-long project on Saturday that should keep me very busy. And drunk. 

But before the alcohol consumption begins… a trip up north to Newcastle for a Monopoly Events convention. Comic Con North East sees a range of TV and movie stars fly in, including Alan Ford, or Brick Top from Snatch. That’s who I’ll be meeting.

I’ll probably have a wander around the city too afterwards. Amazing place. 

Todmorden Book Festival starts Friday with Jack Reacher creator Lee Child opening the proceedings at the town’s Hippodrome. Intriguing. It all seems to go downhill from there with a roster of obscurities, the only other anomaly being former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, which has raised a few eyebrows over socials. I work in healthcare AND I have a disability. I don’t remember his policies helping me or my clients. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

But yes. Newcastle will be awesome.

Second Sheffield Comic Con '26

After February’s convention, Comic Con Sheffield returned to Ponds Forge for another day of celebs, stalls, talks and photo ops. This time, Red Dwarf’s The Cat – Danny John Jules – posed for photos. 

DJJ also played Baldy’s Lookout in prison movie Scum – the guy who lets Carlin (Ray Winstone in his breakout role) into the coal room to fight the number 2 guy. I would have liked to ask him about that but there was no Q+A for him. 

I’ll tell you who *did* do one, unsurprisingly... Boom-voiced actor 89-year-old Brian Blessed gave pretty much the same talk that he did in For the Love of Sci Fi back in 2019. 

Paul Chuckle of The Chuckle Brothers also made a guest appearance.

 

 A small but fun Creed Conventions event. 

Made a purchase

Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner

 

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A year or so ago I was passing through Holmfirth in Yorkshire and stopped off for a browse in the many charity shops. I came across Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, by Paul M Sammon. 

A big, detailed, generous account, FN describes the conception of the idea of adapting the book – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K Dick. It then follows the process through planning, adapting the screenplay, casting, shooting, editing and finally marketing and re-releasing the film several years later. I’ve been dipping in an out of it since then. 

Blade Runner is a classic movie of the Cyberpunk genre: dark nights, glassy cityscapes, futuristic vehicles and black, edgy clothing. It’s mainly, though, remembered for its largely impervious, neo-noir plot: a detective assigned with hunting down and ‘retiring’ criminal targets who happen to be replicants – genetically engineered almost-humans created for off-world work. They escape and land on Earth, knowing their lifespan is short, with the intention of extending it. Rick Deckard – the titular ‘blade runner’ – is intent on making sure that doesn’t happen. 

It sounds simple enough, until Deckard becomes involved in a target and starts to doubt his own memories and existence. Could he be a replicant too? 

There’s a lot in the film that’s hinted at and not properly explained, which makes the film debatable – should a director spell out every idea in his film? Should elements be open to interpretation? Well, certain facets of BR – who’s a replicant, who’s not, the mystery conditions that blight different characters, and yes, what that unicorn is all about – it’s all explained as best as can be by contributors in the book. These include screenwriters Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, director Ridley Scott and other contributors. 

Towards the end of the book – published in 1996 - rumours of a sequel swirl long before Blade Runner 2049 is written. The planned story is quite different to the film that arrived in cinemas in 2017. 

If you’re a fan of Blade Runner, it’s a valuable companion.

Last Day of this Machinist Diet.

I cannot wait for this ridiculous, painful fasting experiment to be over. Yes, it’s self-inflicted. Yes, I’ve lost *some* weight. But no, it has not been fun. More later. But at least Monday’s my rest day, so I’m not staggering about with a skipping rope trying to understand Twin Peaks, which has made up most of the time of the project. 

I’m on leave today to catch up with a ton of blogging. Expect also a write-up of Sheffield Comic Con yesterday with a certain British sci-fi celebrity, a sci-fi book review and a bar and restaurant review. 

Wednesday night: Manchester holds host to former White House Communications Director Anthony ‘The Mooch’ Scaramucci on his All the Wrong Moves book tour. Scaramucci famously lasted 10 days as Trump’s comms guy before being unceremoniously sacked, after which he turned on his former boss, speaking out against many of his policies. Tickets, including a copy of the book, are £40. As for the event, there’s definitely a Q+A. No word yet of if there are photo ops or signings with it. I’m still undecided. 

Thursday: Ryan Murphy’s latest Monster series drops on Netflix, this time covering Lizzie Borden, who I understand may or may not have hacked her parents to death in Massachusetts in 1892. Murphy’s previous Monster instalments have frequently been intriguing, violent and fun, but scattered and repetitive. 

There was a Lizzie movie that came out some years ago with Chloë Sevigny in the title role. I never got around to that. 

Saturday: retro entertainment day Nostalgic Oldham arrives in Parliament Square in the town centre, with classic cars, circus entertainers and the official unveiling of a huge community-created mural. I’m intrigued by the cars. 11am-4pm. 

Saturday night: Manchester Nightlife this time tries out the new Dahlia Stereo, the food and house music venue in The Northern Quarter. Last weekend saw their first Saturday Night, and the Insta story looks fantastic – great music, a real club atmos, and even branded t shirts are available. 8pm, Lever St.

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The Art of Seduction

 

During the pandemic I read The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, a researcher by trade who’d worked in the publishing industry. The book itself was, as you’d expect, very well researched. Full of real-life historical examples from all over the world and from a wide range of time periods, 48 Laws puts forward this series of rules for attaining power. It describes how to enact them, and what pitfalls await when you transgress them. 

I started to notice these laws had been applied by managers over the years. I figured Greene might be onto something. He may not be a psychologist / sociologist himself, but he seems well-versed in the area. I whipped through it in a few weeks. 

Greene may not be a business owner, nor a psychologist, but he’s a good researcher with incredible worldwide historical knowledge. He also seems to understand people, one of the key skills that can move you forward in any sphere in life. Delving into his bibliography, I noticed he’d written The Art of Seduction. I really wanted to see what his take was in particular. How strong was Greene’s game? 

I eventually bought it in January 2025. This book was the same size as The 48 Laws – around 450 big pages with small text – and I hammered through the first one really quickly, so surely… 

This time, the book started to feel like a huge slog instead of a rollercoaster of human behaviour. The level of detail seemed so intense and so broad, that it was difficult to imagine how to apply the stories to my own life: especially when the examples range from Prince Albert courting Queen Victoria in 1800s England, and Casanova rampaging through 1700s Europe. How does this apply to a 40-something clumsy bachelor stumbling through overpriced cocktail bars in contemporary Manchester? I really had to work hard to pluck out the specific advice being dished out within the stories. 

This gets even harder when Greene uses biblical passages and passes them off as fact. Also, Greene questionably celebrates some eyebrow-raising individuals. Revered seducer Casanova courted a 17-year-old when he was 21. (But then, look who’s talking. Didn’t I?) A lengthy passage celebrates renowned seducer and actor Erroll Flynn, who in 1942 was tried for the statutory rape of a 17-year-old and a 15-year-old. (He was acquitted, but still.) Along with cocaine addiction, malaria and tuberculosis, Flynn was much more of a mess than his heroic Hollywood image would suggest. 

The examples tend to come from people who are either fictional or already dead. There are no interviews with living, contemporary renowned seducers. There are no references to Neil Strauss (author of The Game) or David DeAngelo (of Double Your Dating) or any other big names in that field. An interview with someone like Billy Bob Thornton – successful actor but regular looking bloke – would have been highly insightful, seeing as he bagged Tomb Raider herself Angelina Jolie, and had her visibly hanging off his every word.

 

Smattered through the weighty book, there are moments of genuine insight about keeping things light-hearted, keeping an environment close knit, avoiding hesitancy or familiarity, and essentially avoiding fretting over yourself by focussing your attention on the other person. There are nuggets that are genuinely helpful, I guess to both genders. 

Essentially, though, the book is lacking that modern-day, real-world relevance. How can I use this smorgasbord of advice when I’m stood in a swanky cocktail bar in Manchester talking to a semi drunk girl who I can hardly hear over the bass? How exactly do you ‘use a spiritual lure’ in a journaling event in a vegan restaurant? There are no breakdowns of different environments – the workplace, the club, the gym or other sports groups, the high street – all of which, I gather, need different approaches. 

In essence, the book reads more like a history of seduction attempts – fictional and factual - rather than an actual how-to guide. A lot of hard work (I spent about a year and a half reading it) for little payoff.

Bloody Social Worker

I work in a field of healthcare – you can Google to find more – and I’ve moved around between several offices over the past 18 years. At one of the offices I’d worked in, the staff told me that a former social worker who’d been part of the team had left to write a book, an autobiography called ‘Bloody Social Worker.’ I bought it for a Secret Santa event that we were having, but due to some confusion I ended up keeping the book. 

I read it recently. As someone who’s on the paperwork side of things, I don’t get to deal with the social work patients face to face, but I do deal with them over the phone. It’s always fascinating to hear of the more hands-on side of the field. Author Richard Wills details how he made a solid crack at what is basically an impossible job: supporting the town’s most vulnerable people under the Community Mental Health Team. 

What seems to be the over-arching theme of the book is the stress that comes with dealing with mentally ill patients for decade: the toll it takes on the mind and the body when you’re supporting people who are frequently delusional, usually in some discomfort, and occasionally violent. This stress, it can’t be denied, is only exacerbated by the drip-drip effect of 14 years of Tory cuts, meaning fewer staff, and hence a bigger workload. Unfortunately, Labour haven’t particularly alleviated that situation since they took over. Social Workers are, on average, lasting 6 years in their jobs, according to Skills for Care. Less funding means fewer positions, which means as workers leave the profession, they aren’t necessarily replaced, meaning in turn that the workload is distributed across the rest of the team. Increased stress for the workers, longer waiting times for the clients. 

It’s a clusterfuck. 

The upshot of this: social work requires getting your clients to ‘let their guard down’ to describe in enough detail, what the problems are that they’re facing. The clients are less likely to discuss their problems, which are frequently highly personal, if the rapport between the client and the worker hasn’t been developed because they don’t get enough contact time. 

You get the picture. It’s this disappointment, affecting all the clients, that – according to this book – led one service user to mail his dirty underwear to then-PM David Cameron in protest. 

A fascinating, funny and depressing book. It just needed a tad of editing here and there, including one typo I spotted. But it’s great that Wills has taken the time to illustrate the pressures that these public services are under and the value to society that CMHT teams across the country bring, and the improvements they could make, with the right funding.

The Laws of Human Nature

 

 

Author Robert Greene’s biggest book is The Laws of Human Nature, a 2018 investigation into human behaviour and the most effective way to handle the different people in your life. I started reading this 600-page beast in May last year and finished in March. I read a big chunk of it in a week on holiday, the first few chapters in Manchester airport waiting for a delayed flight. I’ve dipped in and out of it since then. 

In the above video, Greene summarises the book: people are who they are. There’s no point trying to change them, but you can change how you handle them. Since the book came out, we’ve had a worldwide pandemic and subsequent vaccine rollout, a British change of government, 2 American political switch-ups, the Nova Festival attack and the genocide on Gaza. There have been a range of reasons for people to argue and, in some cases, fall out and never speak again. It’s been a frustrating few years, but again… people are who they are. 

It’s fitting that just as the book came out, the challenge of understanding human nature – people’s emotions, their pride and ego – became a steeper hill to climb. 

There’s an interesting passage on causes and cults: people banding together for one purpose or another. As I was reading it, I realised its descriptions were eerily similar to something I’d already experienced. In cults, people begin to act the same way as each other, then almost rub each other up the wrong way by being so similar. Alternately, people who are too different then try to fit a figurative square peg into a round hole by forming unworkable friendships through this group setting. This was exactly what I’d seen in certain men’s support groups in Greater Manchester – lonely, isolated people across the full spectrum of life, different backgrounds, incomes, IQs, EQs, all trying to connect, largely failing, but then allowing that environment of the men’s talking sessions to take over their whole lives and having very few meaningful interactions with anyone outside of the group. 

The book is full of valid advice, but there are some brow-furrowing moments. I don’t think Greene understands depression entirely, and this is surprising considering he’s had a stroke from which he recovered. I expect that would have impacted on his mental health. He also compares fictional biblical dreamer Joseph to historical philosopher Socrates. Separately, there’s a grammar error on p159. 

As much as Greene’s books are well-written, there’s an over-arching criticism to be made about all of them: he’s a researcher by trade. An author. He’s been in publishing since his 20s. He’s not a psychologist or sociologist. Nor has he credited anyone who is, who would have lent some authority to the text. 

Human nature is such a broad subject and the book is so lengthy that despite my interest in the subject I’m left wondering, what exactly was the intention of the book?

Law 1: Never Outshine the Master

In Robert Greene’s the 48 Laws of Power, his first law is ‘Never Outshine the Master.’ 

His example uses a 17th century French king, Louis XIV, and his finance minister Nicolas Fouquet who upstaged him. Fouquet ended up spending his remaining days in a mountainous, freezing prison in the Pyrenees. (Wikipedia tells a slightly different reason to Greene’s version, suggesting Fouquet’s networking and influence in society was a more aggravating factor. But hey, maybe that outshone the King too.) 

I’ve got a slightly more contemporary example. Some time at the end of the 2000s, I was training in a Mixed Martial Arts gym in Oldham. The instructor DB was known to be good at what he taught – his fighters usually won, and his lessons were packed with solid advice. If it transpired that DB didn’t know a specific thing, he’d go and look it up and incorporate it. We were drilling chokes in one session, and I used the word ‘trachea’ instead of ‘windpipe,’ off the cuff, and I seemed to be the only person in the room who knew the word. He started using the word during choke lessons not long after this. 

There was a kid training there who probably wasn’t even 18 yet. He’d apparently had a period of absence, and then rocked up one day at training with a largely unnecessary written note as to why he’d been off. This got him the nickname ‘Sicknote.’ He was young mentally too, and not particularly confident when he spoke, but when he did pipe up had a habit of doing so at the wrong moment. 

During an explanation of a particular move, Sicknote contradicted DB in front of the class. 

“Do you want to take over?” DB sarcastically asked him, pointing to a space in the mats. 

Sicknote did not. 

He was apparently training in MMA elsewhere as well. I was a similar height and build, so at DB’s gym I paired with him a couple of times. Twice, he changed up the movement that we were drilling to some other movement he'd learned elsewhere, which first off is a ballache when you have memory difficulties. It’s hard enough just learning one thing, without throwing in something else in the same round. More to the point, it’s rude. If you’re paying someone to teach you to do something, just do what they tell you to. They’re a martial arts INSTRUCTOR, not an ADVISOR. 

The second time this happened, DB pulled him up on it. Sicknote protested, claiming he was doing nothing wrong. DB went to the cash register, gave him his class fee back, and told him to leave the gym. Sicknote was gobsmacked, but complied. We never saw him again. 

The upshot: if they’re in charge, let them be in charge. Transgress this at your peril.

Comic Con Liverpool this week

Looking forward to this week. 

Jack Reacher creator Lee Child is signing at a sold-out event via Waterstones Deansgate on Tuesday. His brother Andrew is also in attendance. I was too late to get a ticket. 

I’ve received my tickets for Comic Con Liverpool, where on Saturday I’ll be meeting Doc from Back to the Future, Christopher Lloyd. It’s going to be great, Scott. It looks like there’s still some Sunday 11am tickets till available. Jump on this fast! Also in attendance: wrestler John Cena, Captain Marvel Brie Larson, Luis Guzman off Addams Family and Carlito’s Way, Boogie Nights / Austin Powers star Heather Graham and the female voices of South Park. Many more fill the stacked Roster. 

New men’s mental health group The Gathered Men has launched in Oldham, ‘for honest connection, grounded energy, and real conversation.’ Sadly, they last met in zionist Costa Coffee, so I’ll pass, thanks. Friday’s upcoming meeting is in the more palatable Black Sheep Coffee on Market St. 

Busy week.

Avery, Vegan Reading, Eye Pokes and Pizza

Filmmaker Roger Avery liked my tweet about his 2002 film The Rules of Attraction.

The Rules of Attraction. James Van Der Beek fresh from Dawson's Creek, pre-Justin Timberlake Jessica Biel, pre-Vampire Diaries Ian Somerhalder, a fading Eric Stolz, an aging Faye Dunaway, Thomas Ian Nicholas off American Pie and - for at least a second - DJ Paul Oakenfold. https://t.co/zzDGWd6IqJ

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) October 25, 2025

Went to a vegan alcohol-free bar to read a book. Hinterland in Manchester’s Northern Quarter hosted the Sober Silent Reading Club, a chance to sit in silence and read yet still be part of a community. Their principle for the event was to build a community without alcohol and companionship without communication. A relaxing evening. May be monthly. Check back. 

 

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Ran a meetup with Manchester Nightlife to watch UFC 321 in Joshua Brooks. Good group of lads showed up. Tables were booked, but one of them was empty as the group hadn’t showed, so we had it. Small screen at the end of the table, nice tidy venue upstairs. Shame the main fight ended in a no contest due to accidental eye poke. House music DJ downstairs. Seemingly no charge to get in. good music. Went to Yes bar after this, which has 3 floors of music. Mostly house I think. Here’s the flyer: 

 

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Went to Yes bar in Manchester after #ufc321 last night for eclectic electronica and pizza

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) October 26, 2025 at 3:17 PM

 

Will be back in Yes soon.

Sober Silent Reading Club / UFC

Thursday night things go a little left field. 

Vegan alcohol free bar Hinterland host the Sober Silent Reading Club, ‘a chill session of reading with like-minded folks. Bring your favourite book and enjoy the quiet.’ There’s a meetup with Manc Mates to coincide. 

Next: big contrast here, but different strokes and all that... 

It’s fight week. UFC 321 on Saturday night has the UK’s Tom Aspinall, from Atherton Bolton no less, makes his first defence of his heavyweight title against Frenchman Ciryl Gane. Joshua Brooks is showing the main card, starting from 7pm, and Manchester Nightlife meetup group will be there. I’ve got my free ticket. JB’s isn’t far from Circle Square, so it might be good to have a look around that area after.

Convention Fails

Movie convention For the Love of Horror happened this weekend. I wasn’t there: the lineup wasn’t my thing until they announced Linda Blair – Reagan from The Exorcist – at the last minute. The whole event sold out by the time I got around to trying to book. I had a wander around town last night to see if any guests were knocking about. No luck. 

Went to Inkblot Comic Festival Saturday. 

 

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Underwhelming fair in Sugden Sports Centre down Oxford Rd. Nowhere near enough stalls for the size of the venue, very few complete graphic novels on sale, and the main Aliens comic they were touting on the promo material was only part 1 of an anthology and cost £13! No sale. I was in and out in 10 mins. 

Had a wander around Manchester in the hope that some of the Horror guests might be knocking around. No sign of them.

Reading Month ‘25: Review

Been a massive bookworm for a month (when I wasn’t checking out filming locations of following recipes or trying to get in shape for the Santa Dash.) It’s one of 8 plans I have this year. I read:

 

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1) Rendezvous with Rama 

Arthur C Clarke’s 1973 follow-up to his groundbreaking 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rendezvous with Rama follows some astronauts travelling to a cylindrical metallic planet, which itself is hurtling towards the sun, and they investigate its potential as a second home. 

Massively inventive, scientifically fascinating, dialogue now quite dated and the plot didn’t seem to go anywhere. Certainly an enjoyable read though. 

2) Stan: Evil Rises 

Short comic free on entrance to 2022’s For the Love of Horror convention. British take on The Evil Dead with a livestreaming wannabe influencer in the lead. Pretty funny. 

3) For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond 

Times journo Ben Macintyre’s mission is to guide us through the life of one Ian Fleming, also a former Times hack but – earlier, in the Second World War, a Naval Intelligence Officer. This life of dreaming up schemes against Britain’s enemies, planting limpet mines on submarines and downing (literally) crippling amounts of hard liquor gave plenty of inspiration for his writing life. 

Before long, he devised the ultimate post-war fantasy of the secret agent: James Bond, suave MI6 operative with a licence to kill, seduce and down insane amounts of vodka martinis yet still be able to drive sports cars without careening off a cliff. Someone that men and women could fantasise about in one way or another – transported from their bombed out city, they could imagine themselves in tropical islands, living the high life, eating fine cuisine, firing hi-tech weaponry and getting the girl. 

The book is a biography of the author, but also an investigation into the Bond character: the background, the role at Q branch, the missions he’s sent on. 

It’s also a comparison of how Fleming’s and Bond’s lives cross over, and how the lives of the people he knew inspired Fleming to create the ultimate spy (not to mention, a few supporting characters too). There’s a great anecdote about Fleming crashing the filming of Dr No in 1962, plus many others. A must for Bond fans. 

4) Maus 

Maus, by New Yorker magazine artist Art Spiegelman, tells the story of Spiegelman’s father Vladek, a textiles trader and all-round handyman, and how he survived Auschwitz. 

Published in 1992, it’s the first and to date only graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. This weighty, generous book, set mostly in the ‘30s and 40s, depicts the Jews as mice – including the narrator and family – and the Nazis as cats, all in bleak monochrome. 

The tale of a young Polish man who endures and survives the most horrendous of environments tells a harrowing account, one that many others of his family didn’t live to tell. The creator – who puts himself in the frame as a central character as ‘Artie,’ also depicted in rodent form – interviews his father and coaxes out of him a memoir that haunts and sears into the mind. 

Terrifying, poignant and more relevant than ever today. 

5) Dynasties: The Rise and Fall of Animal Families 

Author Stephen Moss joins a BBC film crew – headed up by naturalist legend David Attenborough – for a 2018 5-part documentary series following animal families over the course of up to 2 and a half years. 

Each episode follows a different animal – usually an alpha male or female - and their families, and are given anthropomorphic human names, along with their kindred. Charm is a lioness on the plains of Kenya’s Masai Mara, defending her territory. David, a Senegalese chimpanzee, fights to maintain his position as group leader, when Luthor makes a strike to usurp him. (Their diet is described, bizarrely, as ‘catholic.’) Tait, a painted wolf native to Zimbabwe and alpha female, is the only one in her pack who will breed. But with whom? 

Moss adapted the programme into a solid, beautifully explained and illustrated accompanying book, each episode forming a chapter. The section on emperor penguins was more general, as opposed to following one particular creature. I got the impression that as there were so, so many of them – thousands of seemingly identical birds are photographed – that there’d be no way to single them out and name them. 

Finally in central India we join Raj Bhera, a 5 year old female Bengal tiger as she rules over the same land area that her ancestors have for the last century, possibly longer. 

Brilliantly written with stunning photography, the team behind the programme pulled together to make an astounding TV show and literature. 

Interesting to see a nod to naturalist Jane Goodall, who as it happens died this month. 

Didn’t get as much read as I wanted, but made a dent on the To Be Read pile. Enjoyed it, though.

Inkblot Comic Festival This Saturday

Horror movie convention For the Love of Horror is this weekend. The line-up had nobody who grabbed me until the last minute when they announced Linda Blair, Reagan from The Exorcist. By the time I got around to phoning (the website never works for me) the event had sold out. Never mind. There’s more going on. 

I seem to have blown something in the back of my left knee, so running is out of the question. Pump classes seem fine, though, which involves weight movements with planted feet like deadlifts and squats. I’m skipping circuit which involves a lot of jumping around. Keep forgetting I’m 43. Will I be fixed for the Santa Dash at the start of December? Who knows. I guess I’m going to have to phone the doctors. 

It’s the last week of this reading project I’m doing. Expect a review soon. 

Saturday daytime: comic convention Inkblot promises ‘a day packed with comics, creativity and good vibes.’ Sugden Sports Centre, right down Oxford Rd, from 12pm. There’s a meetup with Manc Mates if you want to say hi to a few people. 

 

Reading Month ‘25

Look at this for a To Be Read pile. Absurd.

I'm going to attempt to read as many of these books as possible in one month. Where would you start?

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) September 16, 2025 at 9:48 PM

I’ve looked through my Before 44 blog post from a couple of months ago, a list of tasks to do before my next birthday at the end of July, and realised I’d better get started on it. All of these challenges are very similar to things I’ve done before, so I figured: why not do the one that I’ve done the least recently? 

4) is a reading month. One month of reading books as often as possible. I’ve done this a few times, years ago. This will exclude psychology books (2 of which I’m already reading). I’d need to do separate posts for those, so I’ll pause on reading psychology. I’m going to cut down on the gym a little bit, stick to a few classes, and focus on getting settled into books. 

This time next month, I’ll upload a review of everything I’ve read.

The Concise Mastery

Read this recently. Solid read. #robertgreene #mastery

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) July 19, 2025 at 3:46 PM

Back in December we had a staff Secret Santa, and I got the concise version of Mastery, a guide to mastering your career. Author Robert Greene - he of 48 Laws of Power, 33 Strategies of War and Art of Seduction fame - lays out the steps to achieving directorial powers. 

The full book will obviously go into more detail, and offer more examples to back up its hypotheses, but The Concise Mastery has enough content to put across a point. I expect it’s a little difficult to write an advice book about careers that will apply to most people: different lines of work will have different structures, different experiences to offer, different challenges. So a guide to ‘learning the secrets of the field you have chosen’ will need to be a little bit generic. The sections reflect this – ‘Discover your Calling,’ ‘The Ideal Apprenticeship,’ ‘Absorbing the Master’s Power’ etc. It’s all valid advice, but requires you to fill in the gaps given your own circumstances. You might be a plumber; you might be a PR officer. The same rules apply. But the advice is interspersed with trademark historical stories to back up Greene’s points. 

A recommended, serious read.