Last day of being 41. What can I achieve?
Not a lot, realistically. Tons of birthday stuff to do with family and friends. I’ve got the Comic Con Manchester event to write up from the weekend. Along with the partying, I’m trying to beat some chin-up records while the Olympics are on. Not an easy feat.
Also, I won 3 t shirts in Last Exit to Nowhere’s monthly picture competition!
I bought the t shirt specifically to wear to meet Giancarlo Esposito. What a day. Here I am on the Last Exit website!
Ill at the start of this week. No idea what with. Just drained. Knew I had to be well for the end of the week for Comic Con Manchester. Thankfully, I was. Writeup to follow.
After the con, Monopoly Events were also putting on Dance with Darth, a house music night in Chute in Ashton. Good evening with friendly folks, familiar faces and good choons. I rolled in on my own and still found people I knew. The night was named so as Spencer Wilding, Darth Vader in Rogue One, was in attendance celebrating his birthday. Wilding also had small parts in Harry Potter, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Golden Compass and Game of Thrones.
In social media, I figured out Emma Magnolia’s cryptic quiz. See the comments.
Also, in the same line of employment (click to reveal):
Annabel Red weighs in on Popbitch's 'baboon Vs badger in a fight' conundrum pic.twitter.com/NfUZRPxY0N
— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) July 28, 2024
Way back in ‘01-’05 when I was at university, Deansgate Locks was the ‘in’ place to go. Think of it as what Spinningfields is today. Now, the only bar to stay as the same brand the whole time was Revolution, the national vodka chain. Well, that’s just announced a closure there too. 11th August is the last night of trading.
Tons more to come.
Paris 2024 is already in full swing. 4 years ago, during the Tokyo Games, I was picking specific machines in my gym on which I could see the screens and could watch the Olympics while working out.
These days I have a chin-up and dip bar, a Pull Up Mate, parked up in front of my TV. I have records for movements on these. Let’s see if I can hammer these workouts over the next few weeks and see if I can beat some PBs. Paralympic closing ceremony is 8th September, 7-10pm. Let’s see if, by the end of that ceremony, I can beat records for overhand, underhand and dip records. As it stands, they are:
Dips: 155
Overhand chinups: 23
Underhand chinups: 20
I currently weigh 76.5kg. Through lots of recipes and soup, I’m planning to drag it down to a target of 72kg.
I’ve just got back from a brilliant day at Comic Con Manchester, something I’ll go into more detail in over the next week.
At the start of the month I explained I was going to attempt to get down to 72kg and beat a few gym PBs before the convention.
Well, I failed. I was 76.5 yesterday. TBF I was 77.9 at the start. TBH I was just not disciplined enough: yes, I ate a certain amount of soup, followed some recipes etc., but I didn’t totally cut out bread. I ate a couple of massive rocky roads. There are a lot of family birthdays around this time so I’ve had a lot of restaurant meals. So, not everything was healthy.
During this time, though, I worked on cardio and body weight exercises. I added 1 more onto my extra-wide chin-up record. With this one I have my hands about a metre apart, palms facing each other. There isn’t much range of movement but it really targets the trapezium in the middle of the back. I also added 1 more onto my wide grip chin-up, where the bar slopes down at an angle. A lot of my workouts were classes, so not actually in the gym itself. Routinely I’d do 2 gym sessions and 4 classes. I’d also do at least 1 5km run.
It all comes down to food. To resisting temptation. At this, I didn’t. I’ll try again another time.
Back in 2010 I met author Iain M Banks via Waterstones when he released Surface Detail, his penultimate SF novel. I read it in 2012 and found it to be a massively complicated, long, zany and violent book – enjoyable to a degree but way too heavy.
Other readers told me it wasn’t a good place to start with Banks’ work. Years later I decided to look into his work again; several fans told me to start with Consider Phlebas – his first SF novel and the first in his Culture series, of which Surface Detail is included.
Then, a few months ago, my employer did a deal with Waterstones and we got a bit of money off, so I looked at my book list on my valued Omninotes app and managed to find Consider Phlebas in store. I started reading it not long after, in late April, and tapped through it very steadily. I’ve been busy.
Again, this one is a heavy, hard Sci Fi book following Horza, an enemy of state sentenced to death in a quite grotesque manner, rescued at the 25th hour by a ragtag bunch of interstellar renegades, hoping to find a supercomputer that can help them win a war. What the crew of this new ship don’t know is that Horza is also a Changer, a species that can mimic other people, and is a threat to anyone who rules with force. If the crew realise this, they’ll kill him.
So begins a twisting, ceaselessly inventive tale involving numerous species, planets, ships, transportation devices and a doomed love affair.
I enjoyed it. I understood it as best as I could. Far better than Surface Detail.
I have another book of his, Matter, in my to-read pile.
On the blog: a SF book review, a recipe review, a fitness project review and ANOTHER fitness project.
The 2024 Olympics in Paris begins on Friday night. Opening Ceremony coverage starts 6:30.
Comic Con Manchester returns to Bowlers this weekend. Tickets are flying out. I’ve got mine for the Saturday, where I’ll be meeting Edward Furlong, Xander Berkley and Jeanette Goldstein - John Connor and his foster parents from Terminator 2 – plus Alien’s Captain Dallas, Tom Skerritt.
Turns out after Trump survived an assassination attempt, a few people have outed themselves as Trumpsters, including Mona Azar, ranked 329 on Pornhub 🤷🏻 pic.twitter.com/mylqbT8nTB
— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) July 21, 2024
Wednesday night with family:
Friday night: a Meetup friend got in touch to tell me about a bar meet happening in Manchester’s NQ64, a gaming arcade-cum-bar on Peter st. The event was publicised through Eventbrite, a ticket app, although I wasn’t aware of that til I was there. I’d been meaning to try NQ64 because although I’m not a gamer, it’s a unique twist of the regular bar concept. The unit had previously homed Club LIV and before that I think Late Lounge, but it’s now unrecognisable with retro arcade machines, dark walls and neon designs. I gathered they’d started out in Dirty Martini a few doors down.
I’ve swapped numbers with the organiser so I may try another of his. Good group of people. A fair bit younger than me and my mate, but most people are in Manchester now.
We moved on to Crazy Pedros, but nobody from the group seemed to actually come in, then the group moved to Mojo, which I can’t stand, so I lasted maybe 2 minutes before sacking it off and heading to Oast House with the friend who invite me out. Miles better. Didn’t stay late.
Out with extended family Saturday night:
In case you haven’t noticed, Labour are back in charge after 14 years.
The hard work now begins in wealth taxation (for which new Prime Minister Kier Starmer has no plan), education reform, (emphasis on literacy, numeracy and digital skills, which is great, but no mention of sexual and mental health), funding the NHS (some areas of the NHS are due to receive an increase) and social care model (improved pay, but little on resources) but eventually should breathe lifeblood into local councils. Let’s hope also for an updated prison system to reduce reoffending rates. The appointment of James Timpson – of Timpsons key cutters – as Prisons Minister should give more people the opportunity to turn their lives around. Timpsons is well known for taking on former cocaine dealers and other ex-cons after their release from prison. He’s had a lot of success with this scheme.
Undoing the damage the Tories have done won’t be easy. Starmer is still a Zionist and is still claiming Israel ‘has the right to defend itself’ against the people it is illegally occupying in the first place. The guy’s a former human rights lawyer. He knows damn well Israel plonked itself down on top of Palestine and said ‘I live here now’ like some kind of ethno-state version of Fargo’s Munch.
Anyway, as far as domestic affairs, here’s what I’m hoping for:
• Windfall tax on the top 10%, reducing the number of billionaires
• Education reform: basic psychology including mental health, more emphasis on nutrition, better IT skills, first aid, increased support for Special Educational Needs kids
• Vaccine mandates and vaccine passports for adults-only venues
• A second EU referendum
• Jail time for Boris Johnson and then Health Secretary Matt Hancock after their disastrous handling of the pandemic
• More funding for a bigger variety of local grass roots sports, to improve public health
• More cycle transport and PR work done to get car drivers to pay them more attention, with a better infrastructure to keep cyclists safe
• More police on the street
• More support for disability employment
• Reinstating disability benefit levels to pre-private assessment (ATOS etc.) amounts.
Not too much to ask in a democratic country, surely? Lets see what happens over the next few weeks.
I might shoot myself in the foot by writing this, but here we go.
I set up social group Manchester Nightlife on Meetup early last month. I’ve been running Meetups fairly routinely, most weekends, since then. I decided to up my game from doing bar crawls to organising an actual club night. I’ve not been to Club LIV since before the pandemic, but I wanted to see what it was like these days.
I knew full well that running a Meetup group to come here was going to be a challenge. Club LIV is insanely strict on the door. There’s a lot you need to do to stand a chance of getting in to this celebrity hotspot. Hence, when I set up a Meetup to go there, I specified in block caps at the top of the page:
SMART DRESS AND PHOTO ID ESSENTIAL
Further into the event description, I detailed:
‘Dresscode: Shirts and shoes for gents, dresses and heels for ladies.’
Guess what? People came wearing whatever they wanted. Jeans, t-shirts, crop tops etc. Australasia, the meeting place, might have let them in, but LIV would never have done.
LIV had already been difficult. I asked for guestlist earlier in the week. They’d taken ages to respond, and when they did, they’d told me it was full, but I could try on on the door. Entry couldn’t be guaranteed. (You know what that means. ‘We’ll wait til the guestlist is full of the regular faces we want, then tell you we’re full. But we want you to still try, because we want a queue of people who will never get in just to keep the place looking popular.’)
We tried Dirty Martini, then ended at Theatre Impossible. To be honest, I’ve long felt I’ve had my fill of Theatre Impossible. Too crowded, same overplayed hip hop that was becoming tiresome before the pandemic (has no new music come out?) too expensive for what you get. £20 entry?! Good stage shows, though.
Stage shows in @impossible_mcr last night pic.twitter.com/av9cBvphVq
— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) July 14, 2024
I stayed for as long as I could tolerate it. Then I bumped into an old friend on the street who told me that LIV was closed anyway. Just for the one night.
So yeah, sometimes the clientele of Meetup can be totally different to what certain clubs are looking for. This is a shame as there are loads of places I’d like to go to, but I know we’re going to struggle to get into. But this is why it took me so long to make the decision to open a meetup group. I knew I’d be trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
Can it work? Can I get people to read and follow instructions?
I dunno.
On the blog this week: Saturday night’s Meetup took a detour (this post might get me in hot water), there’ll be another recipe review, and possibly something on the election.
No Meetup this weekend. Busy with other things. It’s a shame because Mousse T (who produced Horny in 1997, you know it) is DJing in Joshua Brooks Saturday.
There is, however, a Meetup set for the end of the month. I’ll be at Comic Con Manchester, so I’ve listed it on the Manc Mates group to see if anyone else fancies going. There’s lots going on at the con on the day, so Meetup attendees might meet in person, or we might not.
Earlier this week I'd tried to get a £20 steak deal at Manchester's rooftop bar 20 Stories. Very odd afternoon. Their Instagram had the deal listed. I went to reception and they told me that the deal had ended. I was walking away, then remembered that they'd actually listed the details of this on their Instagram the night before. I showed the manager the share from his own business' IG post, and he said he'd honour it, but then it turned out a) the kitchen wasn't open yet, b) they didn't have the steak in, and c) their deal was for a burger. So I went up and waited. I eventually got said burger. It was nice. Later they deleted the IG steak post.
Friday night saw the first public night of Raft, the new bar and restaurant in The Avenue Spinningfields.
Great house music with an almost tropical island decor theme: greenery and wicker cling to the walls, illuminated with smaller lights like a swarm of glow worms.
Looking forward to going back.
Names of individuals and organisations have been changed to prevent earache and potential lawsuits.
I recently had to block someone that I’d been mates with for about 5 years. Donny and I hadn’t been particularly close, not as close as he’d imagined. He was about a decade older, and yeah, we’d grown up in the same town, but aside from spending a few years in a weekly men’s Support Group and both having mental health challenges, we were pretty different. I’m single, him engaged then married. I do gym, he… well, maybe walks his dog. I like swanky cocktail bars and dark nightclubs playing blaring house music, he goes to old-man pubs selling traditional ale. I went to uni 20 years ago, he’s studying now. I did media, he’s doing counselling. I’ve done a ton of promo work and bar work in the past, and I’m now in admin, he used to work on the railways.
None of this bodes for a meaningful, deep friendship, does it? So why did Donny persist in trying to form some kind of friendship with me in particular? Why not someone with whom he has more in common?
This didn’t happen overnight. Very gradually, Donny began to ingratiate himself into my life, following me to a different branch of the support group because, like I did, he felt it was more sociable and with more varied characters, different ages and backgrounds etc. Which it is.
It was around this time he enrolled on his mental health counsellor course, and this coincided with a weird behavioural change: he started trying to counsel me. Intermittently, he’d text me with out-of-character messages, saying ‘how are you feeling,’ and such. ‘About what?’ I’d reply, hoping I was misinterpreting. ‘Just in general,’ he’d reply.
The Support Group had a secret Group Page, only visible to people who attend the group, and is a space for people to check in throughout the week with any challenges they might be facing, or any positives, or asking for advice. It means you’re not waiting a whole week to be able to be able to vent, or ask questions if you require. Occasionally, I’d put something up just to gauge the group’s opinions and reactions. Once Donny had started this course, I’d find that minutes after uploading this post, he’d phone me, telling me that I can always talk to him about these things.
Yes, I’d say, or I can put them on the Group Page where I can see a few responses at the same time.
It was just not like him. Further odd behaviour happened: Donny developed a persistent habit of trying to set me up with his wife’s friends, none of whom I had any interest in and were usually, like Donny and his wife, slightly odd people whose lives were vastly different to mine. He wanted to approach women for me. He’d phone me and waffle down the phone about nothing in particular, sometimes about some dogshit TV show his wife was watching that he was, through circumstance, being subjected to, for instance. He wanted me to proofread essays of which he’d only written the introduction (and not very well).
At one point (and this is where my own social naivete comes to the fore) I’d followed – and received a follow back from - a local stripper on Instagram. She messaged me a few times, saying things like, ‘wanna have some fun?x’ I’d assumed this was just to try to get me to come to her club and buy dances. I responded eventually, and she claimed she’d not danced for a few weeks. It seemed she’d been trying, if I was reading this right, for a hookup. I asked her if she fancied a drink at the weekend. Things seemed to be going well. But why was she asking to meet a guy twice her age? And what had I done right this time? Something was off.
I detailed this in the Support Group’s Group Page. People at the group seemed to be missing the point. They were asking me not to worry, and not bother about other people’s judgements. My concern was different to that: was this young woman looking for naive blokes to set up and rob? Was there some other situation I hadn’t thought of? At the same time, I’ve thrown away some great opportunities with suspicions like these. I’ve treated good girls like they were trying to do me over, and they’ve left me because I’ve evidently not trusted them.
So, what’s the worst that could happen? We’d be meeting in a public place. There’d be doormen on.
Donny, of course, completely misread the situation. He phoned me, offering to sit in the bar at the back of the room and ‘keep his eye on me.’
Not necessary, I explained. I don’t think anything drastic is going to happen, and besides, what would you do?
Just watch, he claimed.
Mate, I retorted, with respect, I don’t need backing up, something you couldn’t do anyway. You’ve had surgery on your hands and feet. Plus, how old are you? Fifty?
The girl stopped messaging the day we were supposed to meet up.
Not long after this I went for food with Donny, his wife and Julie, a girl that had been eyeing me up at his wedding. At the time, she was in a relationship. Now, not so. She was not what I go for at all, but we were a group of mates anyway, and besides, I’d been meaning to try Almost Famous. I left the car at home and got the bus in to avoid giving them a lift, and so I could pre-drink from a hip flask on the way down.
The food was actually good, but the three other people at the table had very different lives to my own, and there really wasn’t a great amount in terms of common ground, shared experiences, conversation that would stimulate all four of us. At the risk of sounding like a massive douchebag, there’s a certain intelligence difference between the other three and myself. We went for drinks and played darts, something I’d done maybe twice before in my life, then shared a taxi back early doors.
I messaged one of the other support group members, Brian. I ask him, has Donny been phoning you a lot? It seemed Donny has. Brian felt like the conversations they’d had could have been a text message, really.
Monday rolls around, and – as a routine – I pick up Donny on the way into the support group. He’s oblivious to this, but I’m starting to feel really uncomfortable. Trapped. Angry. Once someone pisses you off, there’s no going back. You probably know how it is: every little thing that they do starts to grate.
Donny asks me if something’s wrong.
You fucking idiot, I think. Can you really not see that YOU are the problem here?
The support group session begins. I make sure that Donny is in a different room before I mention these problems, without naming him, but also drop the bombshell – after retelling the above – that this individual in question is someone who attends this support group.
Ooohhh rings out across the room.
It’s like a game of Guess Who, says the facilitator. Does he have glasses? Does he have a moustache?
Also in this room is Brian, who has listened to the whole story and not disclosed I’ve told him first. If he had, I’d say that’s a breach of the rules. Wouldn’t you?
The session ends a little later. I hang back to talk to people in the building, then I step outside. Donny and Brian are stood together, obviously having talked, with smirks on their faces.
Bone to pick with you, insists Donny. Were you under any pressure last week?
Oh, the sewing circle has been out in force, has it? I ask. What happened to the rules of the group? What happens in the room stays in the room. Also, you couldn’t put me under any pressure.
Immediately after this, I have to give both Donny and Brian a lift home, as a routine. They both live near me. This time, my car doesn’t start.
Awks.
We call up another guy from the group to come into town and give us a jump start.
It’s an uncomfortable journey home.
As the weeks go on, it’s increasingly difficult to attend the support group and say what I want to say, as I now have to try to avoid Donny’s room, and Brian’s room. This is difficult when the burgeoning group is struggling to accommodate numbers coming through the door. A bigger concern is that they are both facilitators, which means they’re asking the questions, explaining the rules and keeping track of time. Leading the circle, if you like. It’s hugely hypocritical that they’re the ones both reading out the rules and breaking them. I’m increasingly finding that the majority of what I want to share involves people from the actual group itself. Eventually, this becomes unmanageable. I put a message in the group explaining I’m taking a break of at least a month. (I knew I’d likely not be back.)
Donny, of course, immediately responds, ‘reassuring’ me that the group will always be there for me if I decide to return. He’s evidently completely oblivious that he’s the main reason I’m leaving.
This brings us back to the blog post title: emotional intelligence. So what is it? Global English Editing lists out some of the key feature of low EQ.
1) Difficulty in understanding others’ emotions
My anger and irritation at Donny’s behaviour was beyond his grasp. There was a night where the group poured into The Moon under the Water, the local Wetherspoons, next door to the Support Group’s building, knowing I couldn’t stand the place. The facts that I’d worked in healthcare, and dealt with COVID-19 as an essential worker, and that loads of my clients died during the pandemic, Donny knew full well. He also knew Wetherspoons CEO Tim Martin sacked all his staff at the start of the pandemic instead of putting them on furlough, and told them to go and work in Tesco. He then complained repeatedly about the harm the lockdown was doing to his business – the lockdown that was entirely necessary, and that if wasn’t enforced, would have led to the deaths of a larger number of his own customers. Idiot. Prior to the pandemic I’d made it clear that I thought The Moon Under the Water was a shithole and full of idiots, and I had no intention of setting foot in there again.
2) Poor listening skills
I suspect, through Donny’s counselling studies, he’s working on this, but because he’ll have been told to. I can’t say he particularly listened to much of what I’d said when we’d talked. He only responded to what he’d seen on Facebook, and gossip he’d heard.
3) Inability to handle criticism
Donny, as far as he was concerned, tried to help me, and I’d complained about him. That’s all he could comprehend. The idea that his behaviour was behind my complaint hadn’t occurred to him. Instead of seeing the situation (him overreaching into my dating life, me divulging this to the group and this being leaked back to him) as an opportunity to learn, he reacted with offence and hurt.
4) Difficulty in expressing emotions
Donny is a very plain, inexpressive individual. He has a son he rarely sees or even mentions. His ex-wife is a bit of a nutter apparently – a stalker, a bit violent. I don’t really know much of this as he rarely lowers his guard and discusses it. The only real emotion I’ve seen from him is annoyance or offence.
5) Lack of empathy
I had to tell Donny that texting was a much better means of communicating, rather than phoning. I had to explain that, other than my parents, he was the only person who phoned me. Most other people texted, WhatsApped or messaged through socials. It just means people can respond when they’re free to. They don’t have to drop everything to take a call, which wasn’t particularly important anyway. To empathise, you need to grasp that other people’s time is filled with their own goals, work, hobbies, family time, relationships etc. etc. They can’t give up that time to listen to someone waffle about their life.
And no, Donny, I’m not going to drive you and your wife to Wales, even if you pay me. It’s not just the petrol. It’s the TIME. Low-EQ people rarely grasp the idea that other people’s time is their own, and isn’t always for the person asking.
6) Difficulty in building and maintaining relationships
To Donny’s credit, he was on his second marriage, which is more that I can say for myself. His friendships, on the other hand, were a hodge-podge of people from the support group, and the boyfriends of his wife’s friends. He didn’t seem to have any solid male friendships of his own. I expect this was largely due to him pushing them away with an immediate overfamiliarity and an inability to sit in peace on his own.
*
To conclude, there isn’t a great deal that you can do to educate these people. People are as smart as they are, and they aren’t going to suddenly grasp ideas that they previously couldn’t. The trick - I now realise - is to be fair, but firm, and to keep a certain distance before you get enmeshed in their problems.
I ended up leaving the Support Group over this and attending a different, Online Group. I only see this new group duringthe 2 hour session in the week, which gives that space and separation, meaning the people who support you in that Group only know what you tell them in the Group. Because you have no other contact, there’s no possibility that you’ll ever feel the need to share anything in the Group about people who attend it. There are other benefits, but in essence, if there is anyone notably lacking EQ in the Online Group, I’m certainly not conscious of it as the conversation is purely structured, so the pitfalls that come with that social clumsiness just aren’t there.
As a result, people are getting the help that they need, without having to complain about the very people that come together to support each other.
Before we get into clubbing...
Comic Con Yorkshire will be back for year 3. Brilliant events, but the numbers were just not coming through the door for the previous 2. Location not accessible by public transport, not advertised enough (despite apparently spending a fortune on ads).
Nearby, Sheffield has Horrorcon, which I’ve never been to. In September (date seemingly TBC) they’re welcoming Claire Higgins and Sean Chapman, Julia and Frank from Hellraiser.
Now, onto this week: Who fancies a club night Saturday with the potential of spotting some celebs? Meetup group Manchester Nightlife is heading to LIV on Deansgate, hotspot for popstars, boxers, soap actors and wannabes alike. I’ve not been since before the pandemic but had some great nights there. It’s not for everyone, but if you like your smarter places, get involved. There’s a guestlist of 10 and these spaces will fill up fast.
Meeting in Australasia for 10pm.
Meetup groups Manchester Nightlife and Manc Mates went out last night for a bar crawl. The former group had 11 listed, the latter 4 despite being a longer-standing group with a much bigger membership. On the night, 3 of us showed up.
It can be a bit disheartening trying to do things for people and not seeing the attendance, but whatever. We made a good team and tried out Slug & Lettuce, Be at One, Yours (our first visit, I liked, they didn’t, may have been a bit early as it was quiet), Motley, Manahatta (slow service on the bar, one of us complained, we all subsequently got the boot), Peaky Blinders and finally Speak in Code (bit of a wait to get in but the mocktail was good). I’ve got a list of ideas for meetups that I want to run. I can tick that one off.
Earlier this week Wagyu steak joint Flatiron opened to the public. I was there, but…
