Hip Hop Club Night / Jeremy Corbyn in Oldham

Club night Saturday anyone? New club Continental opened some weeks ago on South King St, off Deansgate. Think hip hop, bottle shows and potentially a few celebs. Guestlist pending. UPDATE: Guestlist full. It's not happening.

Manchester Nightlife is NOT headed there Saturday.

This weekend Manchester goes Italian for Festa Italiana, a celebration of culture, food and heritage. I might take a look time allowing. Love a pizza. Hardly Viking, but intriguing. 

This week Oldham welcomes Jeremy Corbyn, leader of newly-fored Your Party. See Eventbrite for details. Thursday, Empire Suite, Chadderton, 5:30pm. 

On the blog I’ve got a piece on a journaling event and another on travel passes.

Running out of ideas for Manchester Nightlife.

Most of what I wanted to do I’ve done. Bar crawls like Deansgate and Spinningfields. Peter St. Big food halls like Mackie Mayor and Diecast. I really want more house music nights but these are increasingly hard to come by. I managed a night in Off the Square and another in Exhibition, which were both great nights, but it’s finding them running that’s the difficulty. A lot are one-offs. Or they’re monthly things that die off after a few months. 

I do want to focus on 2 things: food and house music. Some attendees were keen for another Diecast meetup. Suits me. I really want to get to Eastern Bloc (running all year) or Warehouse Project (September to Christmas) for good house DJs. I just haven’t thought it through, and as a result I haven’t uploaded anything for this coming Saturday. 

There are, however, 2 events before then. Thursday night: Vegan alcohol-free bar Hinterland runs their monthly philosophy evening, offering 'a stimulating exploration of Wisdom and Imagination in Community.' I’m making a concerted effort to trying other people’s events, not just running my own, and this one intrigues me. I know nothing about philosophy, but the chances are people there will be able to hold a conversation and will grasp the concept of turning up on time and following instructions. 

Let's find out with Manchester Psychology Social Group. 

Friday night: a WeRoad – large, generic but generally friendly meetup – happens in Box on Deansgate, so I may make an appearance. You might. 

You might also take a look at the new Dave’s Hot Chicken, a food outlet opened this week in The Printworks. It’s only a stonethrow away from Box. Kinda.

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So yeah, if you have any ideas for meetups that suit Manchester Nightlife, hit me up.

43

Had a birthday. Ate food with family. 

 

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Ran a meetup to Diecast. Ate more food, a giant pizza this time. Got drunk. Had more attendees than I think I’ve ever had at an event. There were 25 on the list at one point. Most of them arrived. Came home early via bus. Great music, great people. No fallouts or anything. May run more to bigger venues like this - they seem to be popular.

Saturday night in Diecast Manchester. Cuatro, Bodeguita, pina colada, bbq chicken pizza.

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) August 3, 2025 at 7:25 PM

Dancers in Diecast last night

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) August 3, 2025 at 7:26 PM

Went to a family barbecue. 

Continued chugging through this Viking project. Encroaching on some old workout PBs. Now out of cereal and porridge. 

Surpassed 1.4 million hits on the blog. Got more hits in July – 70 thousand – than I’ve had in any other month.

43 this week.

Expect 2 blog posts about goals achieved, or not, or to be achieved.  

Viking project going well. Good food, workouts, and Netflix shows. 

Went to Diecast last Saturday, a food and drink hall with a nightclub vibe, in an old factory on the outskirts of Manchester. Think rusted metal, brickwork and vine leaves. House music in one room, live cover band in the other. Lots of small independent eateries scattered about. I figured it would be well worth running a meetup there, so if you want to join the 3 of us as it stands, get involved this coming Saturday. Manchester Nightlife will be there from 7pm. Come eat, drink, dance, talk. 

New Meetup Manchester Activity Group opened up this week, offering a range of fun stuff. Ice skating was already ran. Worth keeping an eye on. I’m certainly keen to try more things than just endless bars. 

Recharge and Reset also opens, ‘designed to help you slow down, recharge your mind and body, and discover simple tools to boost your everyday wellness.’ 

As some meetups open, others close. Manchester Clubbing has vanished. If that was your thing… there’s still Manchester Nightlife. 

Power is a State of Mind passed 1.4 million views last week. Whether you love me or hate me, thanks for reading.

Hacienda Classical Afterparty

Saturday 5th saw Castlefield Bowl taken over by singers and DJs from Manchester’s 90s Madchester era. Hacienda Classical 2025 featured outdoor sets from Graeme Park, M People’s Heather Small and K Klass. 

I didn’t go to that, but I did run a meetup to the Hacienda After Party in Albert Hall, an old converted church in the city centre. I ran a meetup with Manchester Nightlife and got one attendee, a new girl. She’d forwarded me on to a Raving community on WhatsApp, something she’d already joined, and it seemed they were planning to come to the same event. I tried to get the 2 groups to meet, but it didn’t happen on the night. 

Still, myself and my attendee got on well and enjoyed the night. DJs and singers included... Felix Da Housecat

 

Todd Terry

 

 

Alison Limerick

 

I’ve been trying to see her on stage for years, but every time she’s booked something has got in the way. Well, not this night. Reminds me of listening to Kiss 102 as a young whippersnapper. That’s how I got into house music. Graeme Park was up next (I worked with him at Key 103 radio briefly back in 06-08). 

 

 

Great night. I’m going to try to run more house music nights via Manchester Nightlife. 

 

Great Hacienda Classical After Party on 5/7/25. Left: Alison Limerick with Todd Terry on the decks. Right: Graeme Park. #Manchester #alberthall

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) July 13, 2025 at 4:36 PM

Hacienda Classica Afterparty This Weekend

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The last meetup I ran was a success with a good group of lads joining up for food and drinks in the sun. A good contrast to previous nights out. There’s honestly a part of me wondering how long I want to keep running these meetups, with the cost, the no-shows, the fallouts, the backstabbing, the difficult people using meetup as a crutch for a social life when they clearly can’t form those friendships any other way. Am I including myself here? I don’t know. 

I realise on the one hand these #prospectivemondays posts are an attempt to draw people in and encourage people to try events and meet new people themselves, and thus complaining about the flakiness and the unnecessary arguments kinda works against that, but I blog about my life, and disappointments are unfortunately part of it. It’s a lot of money to keep being let down. 

Well, I’ve got a handful of ideas left. Then I’ll make a decision. 

One of those ideas: taking other people’s events and running meetups to coincide with them, encouraging the meetup groups to take part in something that otherwise wouldn’t be listed there. I’ve ran a few meetups previously in Hinterland, the vegan cafe in The Northern Quarter. Hinterland run a lot of events themselves, and I’ve been quite tempted to get involved, but their events book up quickly as it’s a small venue. I’ve managed to get a free ticket to a journaling class that they’re running on Wednesday. The theme is ‘Freedom.’ How free are we, as people? 

I have put up a meetup for this on Manchester Psychology Social Group, but I’m the only attendee there. There are still tickets on Eventbrite. Wednesday night, 7pm. 

Saturday night: Manchester Nightlife is out again, this time to The Albert Hall for Hacienda Classical Afterparty. On the decks: Todd Terry, Felix Da Housecat and Greame Park. Also expect a live PA from Alison Limerick of Where Love Lives fame. I’ve missed several attempts to see her perform this over the years! 

In other news, I’ve managed to surpass 1 and a third million hits on the blog, partly after an immense and somewhat inexplicable spike in the last month. More hits have come in in the last month than in any other month since I’ve ran the blog.

Bongo's Bingo / Hong Thai / Carol Vordeman

I realise this is a long shot, but if you’ve ever wanted to win a Ninja Air Fryer to the sounds of DJ Sammy’s Fly on the Wings of Love, there is as it happens such an opportunity in Manchester’s Albert Hall, a 115-year-old chapel in the city centre. The occasion is of course Bongo’s Bingo, an absurd game where the prizes range from a Luke Littler darts set, a giant fluffy unicorn, an electric piano, some Coco Pops (to be thrown around the venue with willing abandon) and a double ended dildo. Towards the end of the games, the prizes get a little more useful, with the last game winner landing a solid £1500. I was at the Saturday daytime event yesterday with a mate from Manchester Nightlife meetup group. Great fun. No wins for us sadly. Albert Halls upper decks get HOT in the June sun. 

 

 

After this I ran a meetup with Manchester Nightlife to Hong Thai, a well-regarded Thai / Chinese fusion restaurant in Ancoats. Good chat with new members, great spicy food and was close to Counter House for cocktails. The whole thing wrapped up early enough to get the bus back.

Khao Soi in Hong Thai in Ancoats. Spicy broth. Then a Spicy Margarita in Counter House in Cutting Room Square. Good evening with new #meetup members.

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— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey.bsky.social) June 29, 2025 at 8:31 PM

 

Lastly, I got an Instagram comment from Countdown's Carol Vordeman. I made her laugh. Go look. Too complicated to explain. 

Come Get Hong Thai Food in Ancoats!

On the blog soon: a psychology book review, a piece on how to train your mind to narrow your focus – as explained to my by the NHS – and a recipe review. 

Friday night: GetSocial, a new group to rival WeRoad, are holding a premium event in Banyan Spinningfields. £10 tickets, but it does get you a discount card for drinks in several venues and works at future events too. I’m not there as there is one person going who turned out to be a bit of a twat, and another who should have been at my meetup on Saturday but didn’t bother showing. 

Saturday night: Manchester Nightlife trip to Hong Thai, a renowned Chinese / Thai restaurant on Oldham St Ancoats. I hear good things over instagram. Time to give it a shot. After that, Cutting Room Square is a stonesthrow away, so there’s plenty of choice for bars.

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Capri Beach Club

Getting back into the swing of running meetups after a few weeks off. 

Manchester has a temporary cocktail bar in Shambles Square called Capri Beach Club, a kind of Balearic open air venue with house music and a gelato stall. I ran an early-doors meetup with Manchester Nightlife. 

5 attendees were listed. 2 of us showed. It’s getting exhausting putting on meetups and not getting the attendees. If people don’t respond to the events, then it’s not a popular idea in the first place, so perhaps that would be reflective of my decision making. But if I keep finding that people say they’ll come, and then don’t… surely that’s reflective of other people’s organisational skills? I’ve commented on the meetup page asking people to only RSVP if they’re going to actually turn up. 

It’s always been an issue on Meetup – you never know how many are actually going to show. I have a few more ideas for meetups to run, but after I’ve exhausted them, I’m likely to step down as organiser and stop paying that subscription. It’s a lot of money for little reward and a lot of abuse. 

There was no abuse last night, but other attendees have verbally abused me to my face and criticised me over the internet because they didn’t like the bar, or they didn’t like the topics of conversation, if I understand correctly. Weird. Well, you can’t please everyone. 

Capri was a fine choice, though – music, cocktails, table service and weather were on point.

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Spinningfields Bar Crawl - Get Involved

On the blog: the last few Tenerife posts, that I’m sure are keeping you in suspense. Cough. Probably another recipe review. Plus I’ve got a few things that have happened since coming home. 

On socials: Actor William Forsythe reshared my birthday message to him over Instagram stories. Actor Richard Chaves liked my pic of us. Actor of a, uh, different kind Kat Kyle liked my pedantic grammar comment. I forgot to mention, last week Arabelle Raphael also liked this this joke in the comments of her reel. My comment got 10 thousand likes on a video. 

All is not well on the online social group scene. Not just my meetups, but it seems that there’s an issue with other groups on the site, plus groups on Discord too. Manchester Social has proven to be hugely unpopular with certain crowds, if this Reddit thread is anything to go by. 

Sadly, I got mentioned in this too. It seems in a meetup with Manchester Psychology Social group I briefly mentioned confidence building as a facet of psychology, and what I said was massively misinterpreted. Some weeks later, I got utterly lambasted for it. I apologised on the Reddit thread, although I’m still not sure what for. I can hardly even remember the conversation in question. It could, I guess, explain attendance dropping off. I did everything I could to bring people together just to share an interest, and it feels like it was thrown right back at me. Obviously, a bit of time has passed since this thread was active. I do want to run another Psychology meetup, but to where, and to do what exactly, I don’t know. 

The upshot is, you can’t please everyone. I took a break from running meetups as I had a ton of conventions to go to, plus a holiday, so I was too busy anyway, but I really just didn’t want the heat. 

But I did run a meetup to the Northern Quarter Friday for Happy Hour in Pen and Pencil, Before the start time, Get Social launched in Banyan in Spinningfields. This Meetup group is ran by the same guy who does the Manchester WeRoad meetups, and seeems to have a similar purpose: just bringing people together whether they’re travelling or local. I had a look. Pleasant enough evening, good people, still a bit of a sausage fest. 3 of us met in Pen and Pencil, which was utterly dead, so we tried a few other bars but called it early. 

The rumour on the night was that the heads at WeRoad cancelled the Manchester group because of an offensive comedy night that Manchester’s WeRoad branch apparently attended, hence the Manchester team launched GetSocial. 

Saturday night: There was supposed to be something happening in Freight Island, although I can’t find it on Meetup. Freight weren’t letting in anyway, so we tried 186 but I was in pumps so they weren’t having me. BLVD nearby hosted a hen do of mostly Irish girls from Crewe. The DJ got everyone into what he called a ‘Congo line’ (conga?) that threaded through the bar and out into the Spinningfields Avenue. Then my friend and I shot off to Ocasa, formerly Australasia (samba music) and Lawn Club, which was pumping out cheesy pop for another hen do. Mostly women. Can’t complain. 

So what’s happening this week? 

Friday night: looks like WeRoad meetup still exists in some form in Manchester, as they return to Box bar on Deansgate, booking the upper level out. I’ll be there to see which familiar faces I can spot, and also to try to badger a few people into my own meetups. 

Speaking of which, Saturday night: Spinningfields Bar Crawl with Manchester Nightlife. I’m aiming to get to a few new places this night, including Habbibi and Shiruku. If you fancy some cocktails, smart décor, possible celeb sightings and chilled house music, pencil this in for Saturday and come meet us. 

 

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Meetups are BACK

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After a few weeks away from the Meetup events scene, I’m uploading a few here and there. 

I’m starting with some simple Happy Hour drinks in The Northern Quarter’s Pen and Pencil, with the Manchester Nightlife group. Friday night from 9. Good deals on spirits, Prosecco and beers. Maybe we look around a few other bars too. 

I’m planning to run some meetups with Manchester Psychology Social Group too over the coming weeks, although when and where is still a struggle. I need somewhere open in the evenings, serving affordable healthy food, not too dear and not too loud, with no alcohol that can take a table of perhaps 6 people. Our previous venue Hinterland fit the bill perfectly, but they have a big events roster on and they no longer have the room. That said, a lot of those events are quite psychology – related, so I might run some meetups to those. 

On the blog: 7 Tenerife posts (1 for each day due to mass amounts of multimedia that I can’t be bothered choosing from, so you can have loads), more psychology posts – recipes and a dieting project - and several roundups.

One and a Quarter Million

Comic Con Liverpool is the weekend after next. I still haven’t bought tickets. The cast of Aliens and the cast of Starship Troopers are on the roster. Incredible. The money I could spend doesn’t bear thinking about. I need to make a decision about who I’ll meet. Hopefully a lot will have sold out, ruling out the tempattion to splurge £400. 

I’m on TOIL Friday. Thursday night I’m planning to do… something social. I can’t just do chinups and watch DVDs. What is there on a Thursday to do? Reddit suggests Northern Quarter. I’m still planning this. But I have slammed up a Meetup in the hope that someone else will voice some ideas. Albert’s Schloss is looking likely. 

I’m also on TOIL on Monday 28th, but Sunday nights look suspiciously quiet too. More so this week as we’ve just had a bank holiday. Can I be arsed putting up another meetup? I dunno. 

I hit a million and a quarter hits on the blog this week. Good going considering the million mark only came in April ‘23, and I’ve been blogging on this platform since 2008. I must have done something right. Maybe the months of Teeline shorthand and touchtyping have paid off.

Easter Incoming

Grelhados restaurant opens tonight in Oldham, on Lees Rd. So the sign says. I can’t find any social media presence and they’ve delayed their opening night by 2 weeks already. Let’s see what happens. 

Wednesday: alcohol free bar Hinterland is hosting Death Cafe, a discussion night exploring the theme of death. See more on I Love Manchester. Reserve a free spot via Eventbrite.  

Friday night: WeRoad returns to Deansgate’s Box bar for more chat and mingling. I’ll probably go with the intention of poaching people to my own group. 

Speaking of… Saturday night: Manchester Nightlife heads to Flatiron steak house for wagyu tender steak, cocktails and nearby bars. The time needs to be established as of yet due to the restaurant’s availability, but we’ll settle a time eventually. It’ll be my first visit. 

No plans for Easter Sunday but it’d be great to get out then too.

Steaming last night in the Northern Quarter.

Last night of drinking before a hard diet, lasting pretty much until the end of May. Went to Washhouse with Manchester Nightlife last night. A Laundrette facade leads to an intimate bar with bizarre cocktails. You missed out. Started in Roxy Ballroom, in the former Birdcage unit. This season, their cocktails have a conspiracy theme. 

 

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Tried Affleck and Brown. Horrible live music, unjustifiably dear cocktails, too crowded. Ended up in 70s porn chic bar Behind Closed Doors, having… more cocktails. 

 

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