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.
Next up in Rukmini Iyer’s The Roasting Tin: this Argentinian beef treat.
I perhaps started cooking this a little late, approaching 7pm, so didn’t get to eat until approaching 11pm.
The brisket I got from Tesco was pre-rolled, not that I know what an unrolled brisket would look like. The chimichurri required 30g of parsley, which seemed like an awful lot. My little pot of parsley was 11g when it was full. Perhaps fresh parsley, containing more water, would be more substantial. I put on maybe a couple of teaspoons.
Prep took me nearly an hour, not the 10 mins recommended, but again, that’s memory difficulties. Do a step, check, make notes, check again, wash hands every time you need to write, do another step. Patience.
Roasting time was 3 hours. Perhaps my oven wasn’t warmed up properly, but 3 hours didn’t seem to cook the beef through. 130ºC seemed a little low so for an extra 15 I blasted it at 200º. This seemed to work, and the butternut squash – a traditionally tough veg – was cooked through and soft.
The meat and sauce worked well together, and gave a unique flavour.
Did some long-overdue cocktails in Spinningfields Saturday. Good catchup with a mate. BLVD was nice but quiet, as was the newly-refit Alchemist. Menagerie was full of snobs. But what do you expect.
Last week I dipped back into the Rukmini Iyer’s The Roasting Tin to try a new recipe.
Plenty of ingredients listed I’d never even heard of, so it was a real experiment.
Thankfully the Tesco worker I spoke to knew what pak choi was, and was aware of the existence of red rice, so he was ahead of me in that regard. Everything needed was also available in store.
I like a dish with a bit of a kick, so I used a whole chilli for the main dish and another for the dressing, as opposed to half in each as per the instructions. The recipe asks for 4 pak choi. I could fit maybe 1+1/2 into my roasting tin, along with the other ingredients, so I’ve no idea how 4 could be a realistic quota.
Prep and cooking should have been 55 mins- I took nearly 90. Life with memory difficulties. Patience is key.
Outcome: definitely different. The ingredients are not things I’m used to using, so the taste was unique. I enjoyed it.
A few people I know were annoyed that they never knew anything about the first event a week ago – well, this is me telling you about the next one. Save the date. The first event went down brilliantly considering it was the first time it had been ran (although Monopoly Events are seasoned pros). Predictions / hopes for guests: Miesha Tate, Amanda Nunes, Germaine de Randamie, Demitrius Mighty Mouse Johnson.
Released Friday:
The UK gets The Northman a week earlier than USA (who made the movie), for some reason. I’m hoping it will be more than Conan the Barbarian with Vikings. Visually it looks brilliant. Narrative looks… familiar.
Well, that’s what they called it. Not sure they thought the title through, but whatever.
This week I watched a BBC show called How to Sleep Well With Michael Moseley, a BBC Horizon special. Insomnia regularly affects 1 in 3 people in the UK (including me) and has knock-on effects in people’s physical and mental health, not to mention can cause dangerous problems if you drive or use heavy machinery.
The show featured University of Surrey’s Prof Simon Archer, from their Sleep Research Centre. The key points I took from this, that I’ll be implementing wherever possible:
If you don’t fall asleep within the first 15 mins of being in bed, get up and have a walk around. Lying there will only make you more annoyed, or anxious, that you’ll be more tired tomorrow. That in itself is a slippery slope. A quick walk around will help reset your mind and body, after which you can restart the process of falling asleep.
Your ‘sleep propensity’ is your ability to fall asleep quickly. When possible, a daytime nap can lift your mood, but also will mean you’ll practice the act of falling asleep more frequently (as opposed to once a night). It will give you more confidence in the act of falling asleep.
The obvious one: leave your mobile out of your bedroom. Stop shining a rectangle of bright light into your eyeballs when you’re supposed to be going to sleep. Sadly, we’re all addicted to our phones. I know I am. But these phones are absolutely botching our circadian rhythms, out bodies’ processes of controlling when we’re asleep and when we’re awake. Now, I use my phone perhaps more than most people, as I store info in it that short term memory difficulties does not allow me to remember. Tons of thoughts that pop into my head, like with most people, do so just before I fall asleep. Hence, I’ve left a spiral-bound notebook and pen next to my bed. I can now write it there, then rip it off and put it in my phone the next day. The phone now stays out of the bedroom.
There’s more info on brain injury charity Headway’s site. Their advice on napping contradicts Prof. Archer’s. Make up your own mind on that!
The show is available for the next 11 months of the BBC website.
“There wasn’t one fighter that didn’t make me nervous before the event,” says Georges St-Pierre. “Particularly Matt Sera,” he says referring to their 2007 bout in UFC 69, “and I got knocked out! Fear is a good thing. It’s made me better.”
It’s Saturday, 2nd April 2022 and former welterweight UFC champion St-Pierre is the first speaking guest at For the Love of MMA, a new Mixed Martial Arts convention in Bowlers Exhibition Centre, Trafford Park. The venue has been kitted out with a cinema room with a large, concave LCD screen showing classic UFC fights, a punch machine, a stage, photo areas including an MMA cage, merchandise stalls, UFC guest signing stalls, health food and drink outlets, gaming rooms with fight games loaded into consoles from different eras, and a matted area for MMA seminars. The other half of Bowlers is set aside for a Cage Warriors event taking place later that night, with a cage, lights and plenty of seating.
For a little extra, you can buy training seminars with the fighters, who you can see here drilling padwork and takedown techniques. Spot Brit Lerone Murphy and American veteran Randy Cotoure.
But the main attraction today is the stage, where first to grace it is 4-time, 2-division former champion, Georges St Pierre. A microphone is passed around the audience seats for a Q+A session.
The first asks about his transition to movies, and his appearance as Georges Batroc in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. GSP tells of having to exaggerate movements for the camera, and dishes behind-the-scenes details. “I’d rather play the villain,” he claims. “It’s more charismatic. I like to be opposite of myself. They want me to be the bad guy!”
This is probably why, he reveals, he’s coming back to the UK next week to play a hitman in another production.
Would he fight again?
“It’s a question of timing. The UFC had other plans.”
The next question comes from a guy who compliments GSP on his ‘immaculate’ hair (GSP has let it grow out and now sports frosted tips), calls him a ‘legend of the sport’ and asks him about his title loss to Sera.
“It taught me a valuable lesson. You mustn’t have too much confidence. It’s about who fights best.”
And so, in his distinctive French-Canadian accent, he reels off other nuggets of fight wisdom in response to audience questions. He believes he would beat (no1 welterweight contender) Colby Covington, and has no doubt Covington would say the say about him. Eventually, GSP says, someone will beat his own record for the most takedowns in UFC history (standing at 90).
But would he add to his record? What would it take to get him back in the octagon?
This gets a chuckle from GSP, but he’s too wise to bite. “People stay too long in the sport, and too late. I didn’t want that to happen to me. There’s more opportunity (in other areas). Don’t stay around too long or you’ll pay with your health.”
How would he beat (now retired undefeated lightweight champ) Khabib Nurmagomedov?
“Movement, creativity, and not be afraid. But we’ll never find out.”
If he wasn't fighting, GSP claims he’d be a palaeontologist. “I was 6 years old, out looking for dinosaur fossils.”
Trash talking is prevalent in the UFC. GSP, however, was always calm. Did anyone make him want to throw something?
“None. Trash talk doesn’t get to me. It’s just for business.”
Dominic Cruz was the “perfect nemesis,” GSP claims. Cruz could take his opponent out of the comfort zone. But GSP’s fight with BJ Penn was the fight in which he was most damaged. Carlos Condit (also appearing at the event) was close. “Bisping hurt me. After a big punch I was putting on ‘cruise control.’ BJ was closest.”
“I’m not coming back, but I would choose Usman. It’s not about money; more my legacy. I’d rather win for zero dollars than lose for money.”
What is his mental process for dealing with a loss?
“When you lose, 2 things happen. It can drag you down, or you can learn. You have to decide why you lost, and it doesn’t have to be true as long as you believe it. This makes you more confident.”
Next up: a photoshoot with British former middleweight champ, the UK's only champ, and current commentator Michael 'The Count' Bisping.
Soon after this, a change of style as the Canadian star makes way for veteran fighter Mark Coleman, The UFC’s first heavyweight champion. He takes the stage to tell fascinating tales of the early days of MMA.
BBC Interviewer Jamal Niaz (BBC Sport, Seconds Out) next welcomes Michael Bisping to the stage. “It’s great to have you here,” he begins.
“Shut the fuck up,” Bisping interrupts. He’s joking, of course, playing the big mouth, the clown. But to contradict that, he reminds us if it wasn’t for the fans he wouldn’t be there. He insists we go straight into audience questions.
A very enthusiastic young lad takes the roaming mic first. “You choked Luke Rockhold and won,” he says, referring to Bisping’s title win at UFC199 in 2016. “How did you feel?” Then, yelling, “HOW DID YOU FEEL?!”
“It felt very good, thank you,” states a composed Bisping. He jests, “Someone take the mic off him!”
It goes to another bloke who Bisping recognises from the photoshoot earlier in the day. “The way you were looking at me this morning,” Bisping says, “I thought you were gonna give me a kiss!”
His win over Rockhold he reveals as his favourite fight. “I knocked him out,” he says, “jumped onto the cage, and said, ‘fuck you!’ Everyone thought (that in the fight) I was gonna get swamped.”
He reveals Jake Paul, the YouTuber who transitioned into boxing, had offered him an undisclosed sum to fight him, “but I’m retired.”
But what about his son, Callum, currently doing well in wrestling? Would he transition to MMA?
“He’s a good kid. I’m not sure he’s got the nastiness. (In MMA) you’ve got to fucking knee a guy in the face. I’m a wanker, he’s a nice guy.”
Leon Edwards, Bisping claims, will probably be the next British champ, but Kamaru Usman, current welterweight champ and pound-for-pound best fighter on the planet, is a problem in that regard. The UK’s Arnold Allen, he says, has potential. Darren Till, 28, will soon be champ.
What was his best non-professional fight?
“I don’t really wanna talk about it,” Bisping says… But tells of being 18 and dealing with some guys bullying people. The upshot was, someone called Bisping out, he went to see one of the group, and ended up knocking the guy out. “But I don’t wanna glamourise it,” he stresses.
Which felt better, losing his virginity or knocking out Rockhold?
“I didn’t actually lose it, so let’s go with Rockhold.”
What was the funniest thing that happened at a fight?
"When I fought GSP I ripped all the cartilage in my ribs. The doctor said to inject Lidocaine (a local anaesthetic). ‘But be careful,’ he said: ‘if you do it wrong, you’ll puncture your lung and die.’ The Las Vegas Commission guy (overseeing the legality of the fight) watched me everywhere. I was going to do it in the toilet, whilst Facetiming my doctor. I thought, what am I doing? And I backed out.”
He ends answering a question about his wife, Rebecca. “Without her, I wouldn’t have achieved. I’d be out getting into fights.”
Before leaving the stage, Bisping poses for a selfie with the crowd.
Last to take the stage is British heavyweight and current 6th ranked heavyweight fighter, Tom Aspinall. Mr Niaz asks about his career aspirations.
A packed day and a real treat for Mixed Martial Arts fans. You can only be in one place at one time, so a lot of fighters I didn’t get much more of than a sighting. Next year’s event is already in the pipeline. See Monopoly Events for more.
Morbius was partly filmed in Manchester in 2019. At the time, I swung by to see it happen.
This week I also managed to acquire some largely Manchester-based beermats.
