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.
This time I went back to Rukmini Iyer’s India Express book for a more eastern recipe. I picked out Beetroot, Carrot and Coconut Daal, a traditional veg stew.
Should have taken 65 mins; took me 91, partly because I chopped the carrots instead of grating them, then tried to grate every individual wheel. That wasn’t easy, so I put them in a blender with some water (to raise it above the blades) instead. Effort. Then I put half the veg in too early.
Result: the daal actually tasted pretty good, with the coconut milk really mellowing out the flavours. There was a lot of it to get through over the following few days.
Boxing Day: a family trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It's that big that you can go multiple times and not see the same exhibits. Expect radiators, cows, serpents and gnomes.
I found something out about the Manchester Meetup scene this weekend. Its’ a shocker on a Fight Club / American Psycho / A Beautiful Mind level. First, I need to take you back to 2015/16.
An old Meetup group called Manchester Party People was putting up events to house music clubs across the city. Good choices on events, to be fair, but the meetup organiser was a known arsehole.
The guy just lived for arguments. Everything about his demeanour was just unpleasant: his body language, tone, attitude – from the outset you just knew he was gearing up for a barney at any possible opportunity.
I’d reviewed one of his meetups positively, saying what a good night it was, how the DJs were brilliant and the people were generally cool, and I’d linked to his page. Because I didn’t thank him personally in the post, he kicked off. He blocked me after I criticised him in a follow-up blog post.
Leap forward to 2024. I set up Manchester Nightlife, and a guy rolls up at a meetup with a similar demeanour, only this guy is slimmer. He comes to a few meetups but kicks off because we don’t want to leave Raft. He leaves me a load of shitty WhatsApp messages and blocks me.
So, jump forward a further 3-4 months. I’m at this WeRoad meetup, for people new to the city. I’m talking to someone there who’s also been on Meetup a while. This particular attendee was in the Party People group back in the day.
It turns out, of course… Party People organiser is the guy who came to my meetup. He just lost a load of weight. And we are all 8 years older now. And he’s still the same arsehole. Bizarre that the Party People guy and myself didn’t recognise each other.
Whatever. He’s blocked me on Meetup twice now.
I dealt with a veritable Buridan’s Ass this week: do I run a meetup to watch the Fury Usyk fight, or a meetup to the second Dissociate night in Off the Square? Boxing, or house music?
Boxing: the rematch between Brit Tyson Fury and Ukranian Oleksander Usyk – or return to the Northern Quarter for tech house, as we did in October?
Well, in the end I ran neither. Regrettable decision. Watched the fight locally, something I’m adverse to as there’s always someone from my past hovering about that I’d rather not bump into. Spotted one guy who was a prick towards me on his own stag do 9 years ago, then another, who was a batshit anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist, came over to say hi. No biggie. We got on well otherwise.
Just wish I’d made the effort to get out to Manchester early in the pissing rain. Somewhere nicer where no-one knows me.
What is Bongo’s Bingo? It’s the world’s wackiest, outrageous and hilarious bingo game and it’s held routinely across the UK. I’ve been a few times in the past, but Friday last week I went with my work colleagues, none of whom had yet experienced it.
I’d given them an indication of the run through – the series of bingo games, the intermission techno rave, and that if two people correctly call bingo, they’ll have to dance off for the prize (something they claimed they were going to delegate to me should the circumstances arise).
What I didn’t tell them, however, was that I was conducting my own psychological experiment.
Just before the pandemic, at the end of 2019, I read Get High Now Without Drugs, by James Nestor. The book details a catelogue of ways to alter your mental state without using anything illicit: lucid dreaming, optical effects, meditation and legal plant substances, among many others, are listed out along with how to consume them and the expected effects.
I’d picked out dill, something well-known to be a mood lifter. ‘This flowery herb gets its name from dilla, which translates from Norse as “to soothe or lull.”’ The book also explains dill comes in oil, seed and original plant form. The supermarkets have it as pots of dried herb, something I buy routinely, so I transferred a huge wad of it- 2-4 tablespoons, the book suggests – into a baggie and knotted it up. I took it with me to work and kept it on me until we got into the 114-year-old converted Methodist church, Albert Hall, where soon we'll be bingoing - and trying to win fluffy toy unicorns.
I’d screenshotted the page from the book containing the instructions, so that once I was in I didn’t go off track. I was drinking alcohol on top of this, and my tolerance is low at the best of times, but I’ve just been teetotal for a couple of months prepping for the Santa Dash. So you can imagine how quickly things fell apart.
I ducked to the gents’ room and haphazardly tried to surreptitiously wolf down handfuls of dried green herb.
I failed terribly: immediately, on my return, a colleague noticed something on my face. She didn’t mention it again. It was all in me by 9:30pm.
Nestor describes the buzz as ‘very mellow’ – I couldn’t feel a thing other than the alcohol.
Bongo’s Bingo, suffice to say, is about as far from mellow as you can get, because as soon as Dario G’s Carnival Du Paris blasts out, everyone’s stood on the benches dancing away with bingo sheets in hand, waiting for caller Richie Furness and his two cross-dressing breakdancing assistants (one of whom bore a striking resemblance to a young Oliver Reed) to take the stage.
And so begins a night of bingo featuring such prizes as a Greggs pasty, bottles of Fireball and Gordons, a rideable toy reindeer, an inflatable Santa costume and, eventually, a substantial cash prize. Just don’t make a false call unless you want the entirety of a sellout crowd calling you a dickhead, complete with hand-to-forehead gestures.
It’s also not Bongo’s without someone winning a box of Coco Pops and flinging them everywhere to Darude’s Sandstorm.
Steaming 2 nights on the trot. Expect a writeup of Bongo’s Bingo, but with a twist. Blog post is probably going up on Saturday. There’s a psychology twist.
House music collective Dissociate returns to Off the Square this Saturday for another night of tech house. I ran a meetup for this last time and everyone was really cool. I’ve not uploaded a meetup for this second venture as nobody on Meetup has mentioned the second event. Also it clashes with the Fury v Usyk rematch.
I’ve not organised a meetup for this either as I’m not 100% on who’s showing it.
It’s the wrong time of year, really. That and I’ve generally been disorganised.
There’s unlikely to be a meetup event for some weeks now.
With Christmas Day a mere 10 days away, the festive events are already under way.
Friday night I joined a load of work colleagues for Bongo’s Bingo, an outrageous night of prizes, raves, inflatables and cross dressers. Blog post pending. I’ve already written a few posts already from pre pandemic: a quick search of the site will bring them up. This write-up will be somewhat different, though.
But how? But HOW?!
Saturday night: Meetup to the Christmas markets. Small group, 4 lads, got drinks and food.
I cooked Bulgur Wheat with Roasted Peppers, Tomatoes, Feta and Pine Nuts on 22nd October, then completely forgot to write it up. I think I stumbled across a reminder in my phone when trawling through the OmniNotes app, which – usually – I use effectively for storing information. I wrote it up on the 7th November with Teeline notes from a notebook.
From Rukmini Iyer’s The Roasting Tin, this was a pretty simple recipe to follow, although I put the pine nuts in a little too early. It all seemed to go together well though. Tasted nice.
The only issue I had was my own doing: this recipe is printed on the right hand page, with a different recipe on the left. This particular double page spread features just the text of the recipes, with no pictures (these are on other pages). I kept glancing at the wrong recipe, thinking, did I even buy that ingredient? Eventually I had to drape a tea towel over the irrelevant page to stay focussed.
The Santa Dash is over and I will stop banging on about it and can now eat and drink what I want for the rest of the year. Hence…
Saturday night: it’s finally time to see the Christmas Markets. Food, drink and merriment with both Manchester Nightlife and Manc Mates.
I haven’t drank alcohol in months, but I’m going to on Saturday, and pretty much for the remainder of December. Hot food from the stalls, Baileys hot chocolate, sweet treats and – for those who like it – mulled wine. Dress warm. We’re starting in Slug and Lettuce at Albert Square, then heading into the markets outside the Town Hall. Get involved!
On the blog there’ll be another writeup of a long-overdue visit to wacky club game Bongo’s Bingo. Cannot wait. Not a meetup.
Manchester Nightlife Meetup group surpassed 400 members this week. Steady growth. I have tons of ideas for events to run, but it’s December, everyone’s broke, it’s freezing and we’re all really busy.
Also, the Meetup site is being an arsehole at the moment. They are trying to charge me, as they will do for being an organiser, but they’re saying there’s an issue with my card. There shouldn’t be, as I just used it in Tesco, Asda and Aldi and there was no issue there. Plus I’ve done a load of Christmas shopping without incident.
Unless it’s sorted, Manchester Nightlife, Manc Mates and Manchester Psychology Social Group will either be taken over by someone else or disappear eventually. All because Meetup won’t take my money. Absurd. This is after putting up their prices a month ago. If that’s the issue, why haven’t they emailed me to check I agree to pay the increase? People are furious.
Well, I dieted for 9 weeks and lost… 5 kilos. Great. I was hoping for 9.
Back in early October I explained I was going to focus on getting fit for the annual Saddleworth Santa Dash, a 5km sprint through Uppermill and surrounding villages to rise money for local causes. Organised by the Saddleworth Round Table, the event has now been running for 10 years and today – the day of the Dash – saw 2600 Father Christmases racing.
My family and I were among them.
Brilliant run. Very wet, very muddy. 5Km in 31:09. Could have run faster if the weather was better. And if I hadn’t eaten so many flapjacks and paninis. But here we are. This is the psychology connection: If I could have just resisted temptation, I’d be a lot lighter and faster. Cravings are a huge obstacle for me, and sometimes I can fight them, and other times I can’t.
I’ve been running a local 5.4km route that I’ve done reasonably well with. No PBs during this period, but it’s given me some stamina. I’ve also done a ton of treadmill work, resulting in 10 mins at 14.8kmph for a new PB. So there’s that.
Fun project and fun day, despite the rain. Now to eat junk, get steaming and enjoy Christmas.
January is Veganuary. I’ll go vegan for a month for health reasons. More later. In January, obviously.
Here it comes. The Saddleworth Santa Dash whistle is blown at 12 midday on Saturday, setting off a thousand runners in Father Christmas suits through the hills of Uppermill and surrounding villages. I’ve undergone weeks of training… and I’m still a fat bastard.
Whatever. I’ll do okay. Always a fun race with great food, drinks and music afterwards.
Later that night, 90s rave group Ratpack (Searching for my Rizla) perform in Ashton’s Chute bar. I can’t guarantee I can be there so no meetup for this, but I’m tempted. Chute’s lineup has recently featured Bez from Happy Mondays, DJs who’d played in iconic club The Hacienda, and others known for long-closed clubs like Venus and Ampersand.
One week to the Santa Dash. Under 75kg but the 72 target is seemingly out of my reach. Can it be done in a week? Unlikely. Lacking willpower. Getting insanely strong if recent pump classes are anything to go by. (Lots of barbell work in time to music.) Last time I was 72 I don’t think I was carrying anywhere near as much muscle. Treadmill work is also going well with a recent PB. Getting reasonably good times for my local 5km running route.
So that’s a positive.
Friday night: WeRoad, adventure company, ran a meetup in Freight Island in which they’d cordoned off an area for attendees. Good group of people, some familiar faces, some new.
Saturday was not so successful. I ran a meetup to Oldham St in the Northern Quarter but people were seemingly not enamoured with the idea, and the few attendees listed reversed their RSVPs at the last minute. I of course didn’t realise this til I got to Rewind, the meeting point. Plus Peter Kay was in town so the traffic was horrendous. I now consider him to be even less funny than I originally did. More of a Jimmy Carr man myself. Anyway, it seems Oldham St isn't the most appealing area, and to be fair, from the street, it's a shithole. It's only once you step inside the bars that the visuals improve.
Anyway, a friend of mine was in at the Manchester Socialising and Language Exchange Meetup, over in the Ape and Apple just off Deansgate. I should have walked, but I decided to fight through traffic to get there, which was made more complicated due to traffic lights being stuck on red near the Town Hall. By the time I got to Ape, they’d gone. I was in no mood for wandering around so made it home. Which of course also took aeons.
