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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Hip Hop Chip Shop (@thehiphopchipshop)

 

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @singlemingleuk

Pic credit Single Mingle UK

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey)

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.