Hellraiser, House music, Taproom, Terminator, Terrifier

Busy week. 

Ashley Laurence, Kirsty from Hellraiser, liked my photo of her. Coincidentally, a few days before this, I bought Hellraiser on DVD.

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Saturday Evening – my mate Paul Smith DJ’d at Ein Null: 10 Years of Sprechen, a house music celebration at Cloudwater Tap Room, a brewery / bar in Piccadilly Trading Estate, right in the middle of a load of business units. It looks like you’re walking into an accountancy at a first glance, but then on entry there’s the bar, and a DJ setup with a small dancefloor leading to a balcony. Over the edge, on the floor below, the brewery facilities are churning away behind the stored barrels. Unique venue. Great obscure house music. Friendly welcoming crowd as always. Also sharing the decks: Toni Key, Chris Massey, Muddy Feet, Elliott Lion, Miles Hollway and Flash Atkins.

360 of Sprechen, Cloudwater Tap Room. Chilled afternoon #housemusic

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) August 31, 2025 at 7:42 PM

August 29th, according to Terminator Lore, is Judgement Day. I shared my pic of myself with the 3 Terminator 2 stars, and Xander Berkley (foster dad Todd) liked it. Chufty badge. 

Way back in November I went to For the Love of Horror movie convention, and after writing up the event I shared the blog with the guests. On Friday just gone, Jenna Kannell – Tara from Terrifier – thanked me via inbox!

Disability Bus Passes got Easier to Use… then Not

Between 2008 and 2021 I’d been using a concessionary TfGM (later Bee Network) bus pass, allowing free transport on buses and trams in Greater Manchester 24/7. Rules changed some time during the pandemic and mine wasn’t renewed. 

More recently I got involved with Social Prescribing, like Citizens Advice, who managed to get me a new pass. This time, instead of having 24/7 use, the times of use were limited to ‘after 9:30am and before midnight on weekdays, and all day on weekends and public holidays.’ 

I got an email from Bee Network on 31st July, stating: ‘During August, you can travel for free before 9:30am and after midnight on weekdays. Disabled person’s pass holders usually pay £1 before 9:30am and after midnight on weekdays. During August, this fare is waived, so you can travel for free at any time. The trial ends on 31 August, at which point the usual travel rules apply.’ 

Predictably, I only opened the email on 10th August. So in theory, for the subsequent 2 weeks, I could have got the bus to work in the morning, saved on petrol, then after work used the bus or tram to do whatever might be happening in Manchester, then return. And I could have read on the bus, rather than having to concentrate on the road. I’ve not done much bus reading since 2020. 

I ended up not getting the bus to work – a lot of hassle when you’re at the gym before or after the shift – but I did forget all about this rule change, (I’m eligible because of memory difficulties in the first place) then went to Manchester on a day off. I still had it in mind that the 9:30 rule applied, having forgotten about the letter and the changes. It wasn’t til I was on the bus that I realised it wasn't 9:30 yet, and thought I might get fined. 

The fine never came, obviously, and I’ve since received another email saying ‘From 1st September the standard rules will apply.’ So as of Monday, the rules revert back to how they’ve been presumably since 2021. 

What a ballache. It’s not so much the rule change that’s annoying, it’s the acting like it’s some new thing that they’re trying out, when it was literally a 24/7 pass up until 2021. It just feels deceitful and disrespectful to other disabled people who found using the pass hugely beneficial. I have no doubt that there were disabled people using the pass to get to work before 2021, whose shifts started before 9:30am, who then had to pay every day when the rule changed, then didn’t, and now do again.

It would be nice f a reputable news outlet actually reported on this, rather than leaving it to smalltime bloggers like me shouting into the void. 

Viking Immersion

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Back on the 8th July I began a new and doubtlessly neurotic project about Vikings. It’s an era of history I find really interesting, so I wanted to dedicate a bit of time to incorporating Viking lore into my life. 

There was a lot I wanted to do that just didn’t work out – axe throwing (nobody could do it with me), and travel to Scandinavian cities (one-way fares might look tempting, but return fares are a lot dearer and flight times were all over the place) were two. 

I did manage to pack a lot in. First, I bought Netflix and started ploughing through their Viking-era content. 

Then I worked out loads, usually simultaneously in the lounge, working on chin-ups overhand, chin-ups underhand and dips. I was steadily getting closer to records on these, eventually adding 10 more to my dips record, now standing at 170. I hit the gym too to work on deadlift, a movement that was a staple in Viking strength training. It’s a movement I’ve rarely practised in recent years, and my record stood at 82.5kg from 2023. I managed to get to 95kg. Deadlifts take a lot of time in a session, carting plates about and fiddling with the locks to keep the plates secure on the bar. I wish I’d trained more gym sessions, really, which would have elongated the project further, taking longer to get through the Netflix shows. But whatever. It wouldn’t have been easy, when you’re only eating twice a day, as Vikings did (dagmal, day meal, and nattmal, night meal). My gym was actually refurbished in the middle of all of this, so some chin up bars and machines are just not there any more. But I could usually get on something. 

My weight came down, thankfully, from 79.8kg to 76.3. Annoying that I couldn’t get it any lower, considering I mostly ate soup and bacon and eggs. I tried to just eat twice a day, but it’s so hard being hungry and trying to focus on your job and work out. I snacked on nuts, like Vikings doubtlessly would have, but the chances of them being Aldi chilli peanuts are pretty low, Scandinavian supermarket chain or not. 

I started with Vinland Saga, a Japanese animated series about warriors in Denmark travelling to Britain. In the 2 seasons, nobody actually goes to Vinland, modern-day Northern America. Well animated, but backtracks a lot. Very long, confusing and slow. A lot of the characters are based on real-life people who lived hundreds of years apart from each other. Entertaining, but outrageously violent. As was life back then. There’s a very depressing slavery arc in the second season. 

Norsemen was as funny as having your village invaded by beserkers. I lasted 20 minutes. 

Zack Snyder’s Twilight of the Gods was a great animated series featuring mythical, almost god-like characters taking on demons and suchlike. Far superior to the director’s Watchmen adaptation. 

Vikings Valhalla retreaded familiar Viking storylines – alliances formed between Viking tribes, and between the Anglo Saxon kings and queens, which are usually hugely unstable and involve people getting their throats cut in the process. Leif Erikson is the central subject in this series, whose claim to fame was discovering North America… something he – like the characters of Vinland Saga - doesn’t do in the existing 3 seasons. He does, however, hang out in Corfu for a bit. Fun, but generic. 

I also listened to a part of this You’re Dead to Me podcast, first aired on Radio 4, about Viking women and their largely equal role in their culture – fighting alongside their male counterpart and doing a similar amount of chores to the men. Very interesting. 

Lastly, I bought Robert Eggers’ Viking epic The Northman on DVD. Incredible movie. Watched that, then again with commentary track, then all the extras. Fascinating stuff. 

And that marked the end of the project. Look at this beard I grew.

2-month viking beard after a trim. Tried to get the norse back and sides look.

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) August 28, 2025 at 6:56 PM

Vikings, Canadians, Pretentious Manchester Clubs

Bank holiday Sunday and I’m predictably doing nothing as I couldn’t get anything organised for tonight, and most of my mates are away anyway. 

Still hammering through Netflix’s Viking related output. Nearly done. 

Tried to arrange a night out to Continental, a new hip hop club in Manchester, but predictably the guestlist was ‘full’ even though I’d asked a week in advance. They of course tried to flog me a table, but their link just sent me back to WhatsApp again. I’m obviously not the clientele they’re looking for. 

So no meetup last week, or this week, and nothing much planned next week either. 

Talked ASMR with Canadian porn star Riley Nixon.

Trying to get Riley Nixon on the ASMR hype pic.twitter.com/L0ECkeNJPv

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) August 19, 2025

Beef Jerky, the Viking Way

Next up in Craig Brooks’ Eat Like a Viking! Recipe book: Beef Jerky. A traditionally Peruvian recipe, jerky comes from the Quechua word ch’arki meaning ‘dried salted meat.’ 

I prepared all this on a Sunday, 20th July, where there was plenty of time to prep the meat: freezing it to an extent that it’s easier to cut into strips, then allowing it to settle in the marinade for 3 hours. It then needed another 2 hours in the oven to dry it out. It wasn’t a particularly complicated recipe, just very time consuming. I expect this was a method of preserving meat that was used by Vikings, although there was no way they visited Peru or knew about jerky. 

In the end, it tasted… okay. A bit weird. Not a favourite from the book.

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Journaling – the Stories we Tell Ourselves

“You don’t need to call yourself a journaler,” the organiser tells us - “the emphasis is reflective writing.”  

Hinterland is a CIC – Community Interest Company, and tonight - 13th August - is the second Journaling Club ran by the vegan restaurant. The main writing prompts revolved around the theme of The Stories we Tell Ourselves. 

Prompt: ‘I came here because…’  

I came here because the last group was really interesting. I got good practice with journaling and met some cool people. I’m always looking for something different to try out and I was in Manchester anyway after a restaurant trip with family. How do I make this interesting for the blog post? And why the fuck did I wear black on a hot day like this? Why not shorts? What a ridiculous decision. This is, however, a departure from the norm of cocktail bars, steak houses and the sports centre. I can’t stay in watching Viking dramas all week.    

The organiser asked us where our ideas for journaling may come from, and what elements get filtered out or chosen either for writing or are just the thoughts we may have about ourselves. We came up with suggests as a group and I copied this from the flipchart:

Second journaling event at Hinterland Manchester, 13/8/25, this time on the theme 'The Stories we Tell Ourselves.'

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) August 17, 2025 at 10:00 AM

The next prompt: ‘I sometimes assume I’m the kind of person who…’ 

Isn’t smart enough to do what other people do. A lot of my colleagues do all sorts of work that I wouldn’t have a clue how to do. But then I remind myself that a lot of what other people do, they can because they can remember the processes, not because they have some innate ability that I lack. I have to remind myself that a psychologist I saw when I was 9 years old told me I had the reading age of a 14-year-old. That I got writing published in a local paper when I was 15. That I edited pre-recorded radio shows that went out on air when I was 22/23.  

The facilitator here (at Hinterland) has asked us, ‘what’s underneath this?’ Mistakes I make due to memory are embarrassing. When you don’t get diagnosed til you’re 27, your character gets framed during a period when you don’t have any understanding of why you can’t do what you need to. 

The gong is tapped, indicating the end of the writing time. 

Next we’re given 4 prompts on the board to choose from:  

If I allowed myself to let go of the story… 

Short story: Once Upon a Time… 

Letter: Dear… 

Myth: There once lived someone brilliant… 

Ideally, I’d have come up with something for ideas 2 3 or 4, but it just wasn’t happening, so I did what the NHS repeatedly tells me not to and ran around my own head, settling for the first idea.  

If I allowed myself to let go of the story, I’d probably spend the rest of my days approaching every attractive woman I saw at all times. The story I hold is that I’m not going to be good enough. It’s a lifelong problem stemming from primary school, or mainly secondary. It’s such a stupid reason to live an unhappy life. I think I’d probably find the right person without the fear. I’ve done it so many times, though – broken through the fear and met people I’ve been enamoured with, only to find they’re from Lincoln, or they’re not that bothered. 

The gong hits again. The organiser flips the chart. The new discussion points:  

What does it mean to be part of a tribe or community? 

What’s your role in the community? 

How can I feel the feeling under the story? 

How can I feel the story differently? 

Dwelling in the feeling 

Be with it. 

After a chat on this, the session ends here. 

Hinterland’s events offer up something different – an alcohol free environment, vegan food, engaging discussion, a good mix of people.

Hip Hop Club Night / Jeremy Corbyn in Oldham

Club night Saturday anyone? New club Continental opened some weeks ago on South King St, off Deansgate. Think hip hop, bottle shows and potentially a few celebs. Guestlist pending. UPDATE: Guestlist full. It's not happening.

Manchester Nightlife is NOT headed there Saturday.

This weekend Manchester goes Italian for Festa Italiana, a celebration of culture, food and heritage. I might take a look time allowing. Love a pizza. Hardly Viking, but intriguing. 

This week Oldham welcomes Jeremy Corbyn, leader of newly-fored Your Party. See Eventbrite for details. Thursday, Empire Suite, Chadderton, 5:30pm. 

On the blog I’ve got a piece on a journaling event and another on travel passes.