Excess Month 2026 Take 2

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I had some plans for the year of being 44 but forgot to include 1 thing that it seems is once again necessary: an ‘Excess Month’ involving a load of drinking. I have a cupboard full of alcohol, mostly whiskies, and genuinely have no space for more. Quite a few of these bottles are about 7/8ths empty. It’s time to make a bit of space by drinking it as much as possible.  

What an enjoyable challenge! I may crack open the Get High Now Without Drugs book and see if there are any potential experiments I could attempt, and power through a few books and movies on that theme too. There are other books in my To Be Read pile that fit the theme quite well. I might also try to get to some conventions that are a little further afield, requiring a hotel. 

I’m going to try to counter the onslaught of my liver with plenty of fruit and vegetables. I currently weigh 81.8kg. For fitness I’ll largely be trying to beat a dips record of 170. I doubt I will, but it’s a great movement for watching films. The bar is already set up in front of the TV. 

An expensive month awaits.

Journal Club, Comic Con NE, Lee Child in Todmorden

A lot of travel this week. 

Wednesday: Journal Club returns to Hinterland in the Northern Quarter for a night of writing. There’s usually prompts, with 10 minute writing bursts and the opportunity to share your writing with the group. Meetup group Manc Mates are attending – there’s 2 of us at the time of writing. Hinterland is a great, cosy restaurant serving vegan food, no alcohol and a quiet atmosphere. The antidote to today’s hectic Manchester environment. 

I’ll be starting a new month-long project on Saturday that should keep me very busy. And drunk. 

But before the alcohol consumption begins… a trip up north to Newcastle for a Monopoly Events convention. Comic Con North East sees a range of TV and movie stars fly in, including Alan Ford, or Brick Top from Snatch. That’s who I’ll be meeting.

I’ll probably have a wander around the city too afterwards. Amazing place. 

Todmorden Book Festival starts Friday with Jack Reacher creator Lee Child opening the proceedings at the town’s Hippodrome. Intriguing. It all seems to go downhill from there with a roster of obscurities, the only other anomaly being former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, which has raised a few eyebrows over socials. I work in healthcare AND I have a disability. I don’t remember his policies helping me or my clients. Quite the opposite, in fact. 

But yes. Newcastle will be awesome.

Weirdness at Nostalgic Oldham

 

Highlight of this week has been not starving into oblivion on that ridiculous Machinist Diet that ended Tuesday – but as a result I’ve already put on 4kg. 

Wednesday I tried to get to the launch of Clean Greens health food spot on Deansgate, but they’d ran out of food and were closing for a few hours while they restocked. I was starving, so went next door to Egg & Co for an egg sandwich. Simple. Fantastic.

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Saturday: a day of retro entertainment in Parliament Square with Nostalgic Oldham, featuring a cross dressing nun, classic cars, steam engines and Morris men. Funnier and more interesting than I had expected tbf. 

 

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The Machinist Diet is Complete… sorta

A month ago I set a challenge to diet down to a weight target by eating only a can of tuna and an apple every day. This was, if the DVD is correct, how actor Christian Bale prepared for his skeletal role in 2004’s The Machinist. 

 I started this on the 15th August. I know through experience that diets can be hugely wasteful if you’ve already got food in your fridge and freezer, as diets can end up lasting longer than you might expect and stuff goes off. So I alternated. A can of tuna and an apple for tea one day, a full meal from the fridge freezer the next. Very steadily, the weight started to drop. 

The month-long project ended with a deadline of 15th September. I started at 86.2kg and ended at 77.6kg. I had been 76.9kg at one point. A lot of skipping and gym classes kept me burning calories. The classes were HARD when you’ve hardly eaten anything, and skipping just gets very clumsy and it’s hard to work up a sweat when you’re constantly tripping over the rope through exhaustion. 

It becomes more confusing when you’re watching the first 2 seasons of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, trying to follow the incomprehensible plot.

 

But the diet is over now, and for the moment, I’m eating what I want. Weight is predictably flying back up, but I’m finding I’m fuller much quicker. A stomach has the tendency to shrink when virtually nothing goes in it. 

I may try The Machinist Diet again next year, by depleting the freezer first and solidly sticking to 1 can of tuna and 1 apple every evening.

Second Sheffield Comic Con '26

After February’s convention, Comic Con Sheffield returned to Ponds Forge for another day of celebs, stalls, talks and photo ops. This time, Red Dwarf’s The Cat – Danny John Jules – posed for photos. 

DJJ also played Baldy’s Lookout in prison movie Scum – the guy who lets Carlin (Ray Winstone in his breakout role) into the coal room to fight the number 2 guy. I would have liked to ask him about that but there was no Q+A for him. 

I’ll tell you who *did* do one, unsurprisingly... Boom-voiced actor 89-year-old Brian Blessed gave pretty much the same talk that he did in For the Love of Sci Fi back in 2019. 

Paul Chuckle of The Chuckle Brothers also made a guest appearance.

 

 A small but fun Creed Conventions event. 

Made a purchase

Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner

 

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A year or so ago I was passing through Holmfirth in Yorkshire and stopped off for a browse in the many charity shops. I came across Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, by Paul M Sammon. 

A big, detailed, generous account, FN describes the conception of the idea of adapting the book – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K Dick. It then follows the process through planning, adapting the screenplay, casting, shooting, editing and finally marketing and re-releasing the film several years later. I’ve been dipping in an out of it since then. 

Blade Runner is a classic movie of the Cyberpunk genre: dark nights, glassy cityscapes, futuristic vehicles and black, edgy clothing. It’s mainly, though, remembered for its largely impervious, neo-noir plot: a detective assigned with hunting down and ‘retiring’ criminal targets who happen to be replicants – genetically engineered almost-humans created for off-world work. They escape and land on Earth, knowing their lifespan is short, with the intention of extending it. Rick Deckard – the titular ‘blade runner’ – is intent on making sure that doesn’t happen. 

It sounds simple enough, until Deckard becomes involved in a target and starts to doubt his own memories and existence. Could he be a replicant too? 

There’s a lot in the film that’s hinted at and not properly explained, which makes the film debatable – should a director spell out every idea in his film? Should elements be open to interpretation? Well, certain facets of BR – who’s a replicant, who’s not, the mystery conditions that blight different characters, and yes, what that unicorn is all about – it’s all explained as best as can be by contributors in the book. These include screenwriters Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, director Ridley Scott and other contributors. 

Towards the end of the book – published in 1996 - rumours of a sequel swirl long before Blade Runner 2049 is written. The planned story is quite different to the film that arrived in cinemas in 2017. 

If you’re a fan of Blade Runner, it’s a valuable companion.

Last Day of this Machinist Diet.

I cannot wait for this ridiculous, painful fasting experiment to be over. Yes, it’s self-inflicted. Yes, I’ve lost *some* weight. But no, it has not been fun. More later. But at least Monday’s my rest day, so I’m not staggering about with a skipping rope trying to understand Twin Peaks, which has made up most of the time of the project. 

I’m on leave today to catch up with a ton of blogging. Expect also a write-up of Sheffield Comic Con yesterday with a certain British sci-fi celebrity, a sci-fi book review and a bar and restaurant review. 

Wednesday night: Manchester holds host to former White House Communications Director Anthony ‘The Mooch’ Scaramucci on his All the Wrong Moves book tour. Scaramucci famously lasted 10 days as Trump’s comms guy before being unceremoniously sacked, after which he turned on his former boss, speaking out against many of his policies. Tickets, including a copy of the book, are £40. As for the event, there’s definitely a Q+A. No word yet of if there are photo ops or signings with it. I’m still undecided. 

Thursday: Ryan Murphy’s latest Monster series drops on Netflix, this time covering Lizzie Borden, who I understand may or may not have hacked her parents to death in Massachusetts in 1892. Murphy’s previous Monster instalments have frequently been intriguing, violent and fun, but scattered and repetitive. 

There was a Lizzie movie that came out some years ago with Chloë Sevigny in the title role. I never got around to that. 

Saturday: retro entertainment day Nostalgic Oldham arrives in Parliament Square in the town centre, with classic cars, circus entertainers and the official unveiling of a huge community-created mural. I’m intrigued by the cars. 11am-4pm. 

Saturday night: Manchester Nightlife this time tries out the new Dahlia Stereo, the food and house music venue in The Northern Quarter. Last weekend saw their first Saturday Night, and the Insta story looks fantastic – great music, a real club atmos, and even branded t shirts are available. 8pm, Lever St.

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My Patience with Meetup People is at an All-Time Low.

Friday night: ran a meetup with Manchester Nightlife to Blinker, the new cocktail bar near Parsonage Gardens. Had 2 attendees listed. Got down there on time, waited. Nice bar. Good décor and atmos with funk music. Cocktails £12-13, mostly, although I wasn’t drinking. Got evacuated due to a suspected gas leak. 3 fire engines, an ambulance and an ambulance car later, and we were allowed back in. No apparent injuries.

Waited til 10. Nobody from Meetup showed. The 2 other attendees, 1 a regular, the other not a first timer but I hadn’t seen her in ages, neither got back to me. I really should block them both from the group. 

You might be asking… why do you do it? Why do you pay to run this group just to have to deal with a load of disorganised flakes, racists, homophobes, ablists and general social dunces? 

The answer is, I’m 44. Everyone else I know is married and settled. They don’t do anything any more. And I don’t want to go join ANOTHER dance group or writer’s group only to find there’s nobody there I click with either. And there are things I want to do in the city.

In other news, I discussed Weetabix with Paralympic tae kwon do champion Matt Bush.

Then I went to a Comic Con. More on that later.

Well, I’m still trying this Machinist Diet.

Nearly a month ago I embarked on this idiotic, exhausting and unproductive project: trying to eat the same food that Christian Bale ate for his skeletal performance in 2004’s The Machinist. 

Unfortunately, I have neither the willpower not the willingness to waste food, so throughout the month I’ve – on occasion – eaten only a can of tuna and an apple, as Bale reportedly did daily. But usually my sole meal has been something else – freezer food, soup (until it went off), or roast dinners at my mum’s weekly. The weight is not particularly dropping off. I started at 86.2kg. I was 79kg this morning. 78.1 yesterday morning. Considering how little I’m eating, and how much skipping I’ve done, I can’t understand how this weight is staying on me. I dunno if the 2 kilos of peanut buter I've mullered through have anything to do with it. 

On Tuesday, I’ll have been doing this Machinist Diet for a month. After that, I’m tempted to just fast it out until I hit 72.2kg.

Meet Red Dwarf's The Cat; Blinker Bar Meetup

Highlights of this coming week: 

Friday: Early meetup with Manchester Nightlife, this time to new Blinker bar which I hear is highly recommended. Friday night, right in the middle of the financial area off Fountain St. 9pm. 

Sunday: Sheffield Comic Con lands Sunday at Ponds Forge Sports Centre with Danny John Jules the guest attraction. DJJ played The Cat in Brit SF comedy Red Dwarf, a well-groomed, slick talking space traveller who evolved to a man-like creature after years of evolution from a pet feline stuck on a spacecraft for millennia. The actor was also Baldy’s Lookout in Scum – the guy who lets Carlin into the coal room to fight the number 2 guy. I just learned that. There are still tickets.

There’s a certain breast – related theme to this week's post.

Blake Blossom weighed in on Popbitch’s ‘baboon vs badger’ conundrum. I asked. 

 

 

I went to support the Manchester Boob Walk on Saturday, to help document the raising of awareness of Breast Cancer, and as part of this pharma experiment. If you read to the end, you’ll see I bailed on them to try and see someone famous, who is in Manchester at the time of writing. 

Who? Angela White, one of the most prolific porn stars of the last decade, is in the UK and in fact in Manchester right now. I gathered she developed a thing for Norwegian footballer Erik Haaland during the World Cup. He currently plays for Manchester City, who had a home game against Coventry FC yesterday. (1 nil to City.) 

Well, I kept checking her Insta stories in the hope of a quick photo with her. I went to 2 different Federal Cafes, still woozy from the caraway and probably dehydration too – she’d posted being in one venue, and I went to the other – not far from where I’d left people at the Boob Walk anyway. When I arrived at each one, there was a humongous queue to get in, but I doubt that was because of Angela. It’s just a popular spot. Her next update was from The Ethiad, the Man City stadium. So I got a bus, then had a long walk. I thought this was going to be utterly futile. I was right. A further update showed she was already in, meeting the squad, slapping their hands as they went into the complex. Her last post was of the players going onto the pitch. 

I went home. 

Manchester Nightlife Meetup group met in Oast House Saturday night with a plan to check out the new Sticks’n’Sushi bar in Spinningfields. We met, but the new bar / restaurant was dead, so we tried Sexy Fish which was full. I’d have liked to stay on Spinningfields, but we moved onto Box bar, which I just don’t like, sorry. Too chavvy. Got roped into pool games that I’m dreadful at. Moved onto Blues Kitchen, of which I’ve also had my fill. I didn’t last long. 

On the way out a trans influencer called Jessica Such collared me for some video interview. I’m assuming that’ll be on Insta soon. You can guess the question. And the answer.

Manchester Boob Walk… on Caraway

A month ago I attempted to get high on caraway, a seed available in many supermarkets, while attending the Manchester Day Parade. According to Dan Nestor – author of Get High Now (Without Drugs) – this is perfectly achievable. Minor dizziness and sickness was the upshot. 

I still had half the pot, so I figured a surreal – but very meaningful – gathering might be an ideal opportunity to try it out again. 

I don’t want to overlook the purpose of the event I attended today. Saturday 5th March, Manchester held host to the Boob Walk, raising awareness of Breast Cancer. There are around 59,400 new breast cancer cases in the UK every year, that's around 160 every day, according to Cancer Research UK. 

Hence, several hundred women dressed as breasts paraded from St Peter’s Square, down Oxford Rd and into Circle Square, where alternative event Manchester Psych Fest was taking place, with a rave, trippy outfits and yoga on offer. So fuck knows what a bunch of high-as-a-kite hippies thought when a barrage of literal tits rocked up for a photoshoot. 

 

Of course, on the way, I was chugging down this half pot of caraway seeds. These, Nestor says, give a sensation that’s ‘identical to taking an aspirin for a headache, but without having the headache.’ Maybe. We met at the Library at 11. By 11:30 I’d eaten the rest of the pot. Again, maybe a slight dizziness took over. I dunno. I made sure I kept drinking water; it was still a mild September day and when you’re walking, you notice the warmth. 

At this point, I noticed someone famous was in Manchester. I wanted to see if I could snap a selfie with them, so I bailed on the boobs and bussed to a different part of Manchester. But where? And for whom? Stay tuned...

Suffragette Annie Kenny getting in on the action

These old DVDs are SAVED

7 years ago I showed off this massive film collection that I’ve been accruing since 1997. 

A lot of these films were recorded from TV in the 90s, onto Long Play VHS, then transferred to DVD in around 2006-7. The DVD recorder seemed a little faulty, though, and I didn’t seem to be able to play the discs properly after recording and finalising (almost like ‘locking the door’ on a DVD to stop any more content being recorded onto it, and to allow it to be played on other devices). Hence, most of these discs stayed in storage under my bed, as they had done for 20 years. 

In December ’25 my PC pretty much conked out, so I had to splurge on a new one. Along with presents for family and meals out, I figured I may as well invest more. I’m a tight bastard most of the year, so why not shell out more on a Blu-Ray player? They’re under £100 these days. Not to mention, an old college mate of mine had moved abroad and had left a load of DVDs and Blu-Rays at his dad’s. He kindly donated them to me. I needed something to watch them on.

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So, that month I made a purchase; my dad and I wired everything up and I tried out one of the donated Blu-Rays. Brilliant picture quality. Everything worked fine. But what about the DVD+Rs storing all those VHS films? 

Turns out, they play too. They even fast forward, rewind and pause, something my old DVD+R recorder didn’t seem to be able to do, to my frustration. I’ve enjoyed revisiting some grainy, low-quality versions of some classic movies. I’ve watched the likes of Videodrome and Psycho, both recorded from TV on Long Play (VHS tape recorded at half speed, meaning you could fit double the video time onto the tape). I find, these days, I understand the plots much more than I did in my late teens and early 20s. 

I’ve got a list of old films to revisit and I’ve tapped through a few of them. I have more to watch and am looking forward to immersing myself in some brilliant (and usually little-known) cinema.

Try the New Sticks 'n' Sushi in Spinningfields

 

Looking forward this week: 

TV and movie convention For the Love of Retro takes place this weekend in Telford, which is a little too far for me. An incredible line-up though. I could easily have spent £400 if I could be arsed with a long drive and more money on a hotel room, which I can’t. 

New bar and restaurant Sticks ‘n’ Sushi opened in Spinningfields, a Japanese / Scandinavian chain. Manchester Nightlife are headed there on Saturday for cocktails and mocktails, plus to look around a few other bars. Glamorous decor, chilled background beats, possibly the odd celeb knocking about. Come join the Meetup group. See the newest parts of the city. 4 of us so far. Will be more by the weekend.

3 Million Hits

This blog passed the 3 million hit mark yesterday. I’ve been running it since 2008. I hit 1 million in April ‘23 and 2 million in April this year. Either people are suddenly interested in my random nights out and amateur psychological musings, or there’s a whole lot of bot traffic out there. I suspect the latter. 

I annoyed Sabre from Gladiators with my grammar pedantry. 

Peter Cullen died, yet another person I could have met at one convention or another, but didn’t. I'm sure he was booked to attend at something local. He voiced the titular Predator, Eeyore the donkey from Whinnie the Pooh and Optimus Prime in the 1984 animated Transformers: The Movie. 

It’s a bank holiday tomorrow and I predictably have put up a last minute meetup for tonight: drinks on Deansgate, if that floats your boat. I always forget when it’s a bank holiday, and no other organiser on Meetup seems to put much up either. There’s a women’s cinema trip, a live music acoustic set in a pub, a bouldering session and a 70s disco night – great if that’s your thing – but not much else. I guess it’s down to me. 9pm, Slug and Lettuce Deansgate, 9pm.

 

This Machinist Diet is starting to get painful.

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2 weeks ago I started this Machinist Diet: an attempt to eat like Christian Bale did in preparation for his role as an anorexic insomniac. My goal isn't to look like him - it's to hit 72.2kg. 

It’s taking a lot longer than I thought, although it’s really starting to hurt now. Yesterday I just had tuna and apple for lunch, with no other meal all day. Then I blasted through circuit class as best as I could. This morning I did pump, sauna and steam. I’m about to eat again now. I’m still 82.4kg, a very minor reduction considering how little I’ve eaten and how much exercise I’ve done. Both my skipping ropes snapped on Thursday, so I bought 2 more, much sturdier this time. 

One thing I’ve noticed on The Machinist Diet – you don’t have to clean the kitchen anywhere near as much. Hardly any food prep or consumption happens in it. I still have a load of soup to eat, plus stuff in my freezer. I’m out of milk, protein drinks, cheese and eggs. 

Oh, also, I watched all the (very interesting) extras on The Machinist DVD. 

Let’s see what happens next...