Matt Tuckey is a writer from Oldham, England. He covers celebrities, night life, Manchester, fitness, creative writing, social media, psychology and events. Some of this may, in some way, help others. Or maybe it'll just entertain you for a while.
I've
uploaded a few items from this holiday before, but there are a few
treasures worth sharing from the weekend in The Big Apple. On the
plane over there we were sat near some guy from Emmerdale who's name
escapes me and my holiday group. This bloke- heavy-set and
dual-heritage with a shaved head I think- was with a group of his
mates, flying over for this fight: Lennox Lewis vs Michael Grant.
On
the flight over there, him and his mates got hugely drunk, spilled
their drinks everywhere, performed crap Ali G impressions shouting
'ride da punani' at the top of their voices and got bollocked off the
stewardesses.
A
few days later, in Manhattan one evening, we wandered past Madison
Square Gardens. The area was quiet, although posters for the Lewis
Grant fight were draped huge over the building. I
asked the doorman what was happening tonight.
“They're
fighting,” he said.
“This
fight?” I asked, like a total moron.
“Yes.”
I
pushed my luck. “Can I take a look?”
“No.”
Well.
Hardly the blag of the century. Great holiday, though.
How
was your Thursday night? Here's what mine looked like...
A
friend of mine was competing in the 7th heat of Miss Swimsuit UK,
this time taking place in the beautiful Sugar Hut in Liverpool. She needed a lift- I
was happy to oblige!
As
I'd brought one of the competitors I was there early, so helped out
with setting up presentation boards and the like while the girls got
the lowdown on how the event would run.
Before
long, the celebrity guest judges started to arrive, including Love Island's Jess Hayes
Model
and Celebrity Big Brother contestant Chloe Khan
On
the decks: DJ Kenzie,
formerly of Blazin' Squad fame,
playing some great house music. Our compare for the evening: Love
Island's Katie Salmon.
The
girls all looked stunning. Maisy (girl 6) took 3rd place,
and Emma (girl 4) landed second. Our winner: Girl 8, Louella Walker!
A
great night with an afterparty in Heaven. No, not that Heaven, gay
club Heaven.
I got home so late I hit rush hour. Looking forward to the final
in Manchester this Thursday!
A
cool event, in more ways than one. Techno rave in a fridge, sponsored
by Coors Light. For health and safety
reasons, they moved us out after about 15 minutes.
Also,
I got another mention in celeb gossip email Popbitch
after I showed them this tweet from DJ Todd Terry...
Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade may have come out in 1989, a good decade
or two before the blogging started to become popular, but the classic
adventure movie may have planted a seed in me that led to the blog
you're reading now.
Indy's
dad Henry (Sean Connery) kept a record of his search for the Holy
Grail because he knew his memory would fade. The diary, not just an
account of adventures taken, led them into more scenarios that made
great stories- including meeting some well-known historical figures,
shall we say. I'm sure I saw this film first when I was in primary
school, possibly around the time I started keeping a diary myself.
I
got Roald Dahl's Diary 1992 as a Christmas present- a blank diary
with themes for each month based on his classic children's books.
Quentin Blake's sketchy illustrations adourned the pages here and
there, an each month followed a theme based on one of Dahl' classic
children's novels. January, for example, contains pictures and qoutes
from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I wrote a lot about school
and the clubs that my friends and I used to run, where we'd draw
pictures and play games based on a certain theme. Friday was the SDA
club, the Secret Detective Agency, where we'd look for thing to
investigate (a small primary school in Oldham didn't have many
remarkable attributes so it was quite a dull group) and there were
others we'd run involving games and art.
According
to my diary, I usually watched a lot of shit TV, tried to draw
cartoon characters, played Amiga games and took extra maths lessons
(resulting in no improvement). I kept up with notetaking from January
to September. It wasn't a patch on Henry's quest for the Holy Grail,
but it was a tribute of sorts. I was quite neurotic about keeping
records, something I wish I'd done more of as I found they helped me
to remember what was happening in my life. Records are essential not
just for fictional explorers, but for people like myself with memory difficulties.
As
I got older, I fell out of the habit as I became busier and didn't
want to dwell on the challenges I was facing. I learned, though, to
document the most interesting parts, thanks, I guess, to Indiana
Jones and Roald Dahl.
I've
kept this going to this day, thanks to the emergence of the
blogosphere. But, unlike Indy, I haven't dealt with many world
political leaders- just reality TV stars, fading singers and DJs, and
authors. A handful of people find it interesting, and at least now I can remember it all.
I've been collecting beermats since I was about 8, so since around 1990. I've got a few hundered. I thought it might be interesting to some people to share some of these vintage designs over instagram, so I decided to upload 10 at a time and use the #tbt Throwback Thursday tag to get a little exposure. Added to this, I checked Insta for any beermat-related hashtags, and I'm adding them to each post too. I'll embed a few of these onto the blog as the weeks go on.
Gotta remember to photograph the reverse side first, so the picture displayed in embedded posts is the front.
A month ago
I posted that I had started taking Promax, a protein supplement from
Maximuscle. I've spent the month taking this and trying to beat
personal bests at the gym.
I
typically forgot to make note of my body weight at the start, and
yesterday I ingested my last protein shake. I'm around 84kg, which
I've weighed as much as before, but never more.
My
weights notebook is now around 7 years old. The hardback cover has
fallen off and the pages are coming loose, so I may have lost a few
records. I should probably have kept the records in my phone instead. Even so, I tried to stick to the same few movements- mostly chinups, leg press and chest press. I got no PBs on any of these.
21/8
onwards
5
more dips, 60 in total
2x18kg
vertical dumbbell fly, the next weight up, 4kg heavier
I've
tried to eat clean, eating a little more veg and meat than usual, but it's hard work. I'm not
convinced that protein shakes work, to be honest. A doctor once told
me they were a complete waste of money, and after trying 2 brands I'd
say he was right. Not to mention, my mum guessed that I was on the shakes, telling me I looked fat. Cheers, mum. Cooking from raw ingredients, with a ton of veg and
meat, is the way forward.
Who's out for fresher's week? Mostly
people about half my age, probably... but that's no reason for me not
to join them. Nor you either.
As
it stands, there aren't really any meetups for midweek nights out,
but keep your eyes open. Friday is going to be a BLINDER though!
New
bar Impossible soft-opened some
weeks ago, but the official opening is this Friday, including the
opening of the downstairs club area. It's also the launch of Boogie
in Wonderland Ibiza, Impossible's weekly star-studded party.
As
you can see, there's a few big names on the lineup so far. I'm a huge
Barbara Tucker fan; Most Precious
Love is one of my favourite songs.
Hopefully
she'll sing it when she drops in this Friday. Manchester Cool Bars
are going- you should too. Tickets are a bargain at a tenner each.
Thursday
night saw the launch of Viper, a new mobile
phone app promoting nightlife deals in Manchester, and is 'designed
to upgrade your night & put the best bars within reach.' As a
winner of one of their competitions a few months ago, I got invited to Neighbourhood.
I
must have been there either too early or too late, as I didn't see
any of these people, and I would have liked to. Still, a good night.
Because
we were stood in an area the staff needed to use, we got an upgrade
before any of us had downloaded the app-
they move us to our own table! Respect! Lovely staff and venue.
Looking
forward to seeing a few nightlife deals on the app over the next few
months.
Saturday
daytime I dropped into the
#icecaverave in
Albert Square, home of the new Coors Light installation. A temporary
nightclub / human freezer sits right under the town hall, with a
drinks stall outside for waiting customers. I rolled up thinking my
mate was DJing- it turned out I was a full week early. Oh well. I was
given a coloured wristband with a timeslot, and waited for my colour
to be shouted out. In the meantime a gay knock-off chubby Chris Hemsworth lookalike repeatedly hit on me. Oh well. Eventually my
colour was read out, I queued up and was given a quilted poncho and
sent into the coldest club I have ever been in.
Ice
sculptures adorn the bar, which you'd have to use elbow grease to get
to, but if it wasn't so busy you'd be too cold. Even so, a lively
two-step is not just an impulse to the great house music- it's a
survival requirement.
Later
that night I dropped into the new refitted Birdcage
for Stopout Saturdays, with
Manchester Cool Bars.
The club's first night after a recent refit, Stopout had been
promising Love Island's Jamie Jewitt making an appearance, but
he's been stalled 'til next week (there'll be another meetup).
Although
quite different to what I'd normally do on a weekend, The Birdcage
was a fun night with a young, good-looking clientele. No drag shows
this time, (to my relief I might add) but the new booths, wallpaper
and VIP glass partition (which we could seemingly wander between
unrestrictedly) look much better. It isn't a whole lot different,
mind- the club has the same layout and same Capital Radio-style music
output.
And
on Twitter: DJ Todd Terry (It's Over
Love, Jumpin', Something's Goin' On) thinks I'm going to step between
a baboon and a badger, and win. I'd pass on that, thanks!
Trigger
warning: this blog post discusses suicidal thoughts.
September
is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. The aim of this
campaign is 'to share resources and stories in an effort to shed
light on this highly taboo and stigmatized topic.' Last Sunday was World Suicide Prevention Day,
a campaign intending to reduce the huge numbers of people taking
their own lives.
I
remember back in either '09 or '10, when I was mates with a group of
privately educated lads with chips on their shoulders, all desperate
to prove that they weren't just middle class BMW drivers. I was at a
house party with them when one of them brought up the issue of
suicide. He was quite a popular guy (although I couldn't stand him).
Before long a number of them wanted to share their stories of their
lowest points, and their suicidal feelings. I didn't.
One
of the girls in the group quite fancied me, and I liked her too, but
I hated her brother. He'd threatened to batter me for no reason, and
a mutual friend witnessed this and did fuck all. Of course, dealing
with depression myself, I brushed it off.
The
party was at their parents' house. But this girl, she wanted to know
if I'd ever thought about 'that'- suicide. I was in two minds about
opening up. I decided not to. I knew my friendship with the group,
and the potential relationship with her, wasn't going anywhere. But I
lacked the confidence to say no to the group, and to cut myself off.
I didn't do that until 2015.
Talk,
talk, talk. Don't bottle it. But find the right people to do that
with- your instincts will tell you if they are good enough friends.
History
is a lot smaller than the three rooms that Taboo occupied at the
previous venue, but it's a much better looking club. The night itself
was always a fun one, so I can't wait to see it operate in the new unit. I'll be checking it out soon, so keep your eyes peeled on the
Manchester Cool Bars Meetup page and join
us.
I
have one solid plan this week which you can pencil in too: Cool Bars
is heading to The Birdcage on
Saturday night for the reopening of the Withy Grove club. New night
Stopout Saturdays launches this week, hosted by Love Island's Jamie Jewitt!
One
more thing: last week I discussed chips with
house music producer Route 94. Can anyone else say they've achieved
that level of celebrity hobnobbing?
It's
the 25th
Anniversary of Set You Free, the 1995 dance hit from
N-Trance, fronted by Oldham-raised singer
Kelly Llorenna.
Aptly, Saturday night saw the first Oldham Live take place in Parliament
Square in the centre of the town.
I
actually didn't realise that KL was the singer on N-Trance until I
saw Oldham Live's lineup earlier this week. I made a plan to drop in.
I
was a little late. I bumped into a colleague on the way, so sorry for
my rambling northern commentary on the videos. Kelly gave brilliant renditions of
her hits True Love and Set You Free.
A
great performance. Shame the crowds weren't large, but old-school
singers' audiences are always a little difficult to gather together. People have babies and whatnot.
Other
performances included Oldham-born Clint Boon from Inspiral Carpets, The Farm, Gemma Hunt from Cbeebies Swashbuckle,
Brother Beyond and
Stooshe. Something for everyone, really.
Great to see local talent that has made it big coming to give
something back to their hometown.
