Come to the new Katie O'Brien's Saturday

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matttuckey)

 

I booked today off to write up a Comic Con that I actually ended up not going to. The guests were interesting but not really my thing this time. 

But this has meant I can get on with other things. Including this one, I have 3 blog posts to write. Also, expect a recipe review on the blog this Saturday. 

But what’s happening in the city? Saturday night: new bar Katie O’Brien’s has opened and is already hugely popular. Manchester Nightlife are headed there Saturday night, first starting on the corner of Peter St in Dirty Martini. 

New Meetup group Manchester Whisky Tasting Events opens with a tasting event on the 13th. I’m dieting for an upcoming wedding, but I’ll be all over some whisky tasting after that, depending on their events. I’m a big single malt fan. I went to a couple of tastings in Oldham about 15 years ago, then again in ‘12 and ‘23 in Scotland. 

My friend Fay has set up Manchester Woman and Guys Having Fun meetup group (sic). It’s got a bit of everything: coffee meets, fitness, food, drink, movies. Keep an eye on it. 

A heads-up for anyone visiting rooftop bar 20 Stories this summer: there’s a £10 door charge which ‘will apply from Saturday 23rd May until Monday 31st August (Bank Holiday) from 5pm onwards.’ I guess if you were the manager and it’s busy season, you may as well make the money.

Excess Month Practical / NaBloPoMo Review

Essentials for #nablopomo2017 knee pads for low-angle photos or elevated views (climbing may be necessary) strong alcohol for warmth, pen and notebook.

A post shared by Matt Tuckey (@matttuckey) on Dec 1, 2017 at 6:17am PST

The world can only be grasped by action, not contemplation... The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

-Jacob Bronowski, Polish mathematician and humanist

Well, I did it. 30 posts in 30 days, throughout November, for National Blog Posting Month. I enjoyed searching out content and hammering out text as quickly as I could.

I got nearly 4000 hits in the month, which is a little more than other recent months, but nowhere near the inexplicable successes of 2014 where I was getting a 500-1000 hits a day for most of the year. God knows what I was doing right at that time. Weirdly, my most popular post in the past month was this one about Bowlers' car boot sale. (119 views at the time of writing.) I still haven't tried the recipe book I bought there.

On the 5^th, I decided that I'd up my drinking, in accordance with the theme of 'excess,' to see if that would suppress my appetite and help me to lose weight. A few people suggested that it wouldn't work. They were right: I went from 84kg (13'3) to 82.9kg (13'), not as much as I'd hoped, but it's still the equivalent of 4 pieces of crockery. I still have a bit of a gut, but I'm still skipping breakfast, so we'll see how that affects weight.

In the month of November I got no personal bests in the gym.

I drank, this month. I finished the remnants of bottles of Aberlour, Highland Park, (my favourite), Wild Turkey, and downed a sample bottle of The Arran Malt, and threw out some Baileys chocolates which were about 4 years out of date (typically, I only noticed once I'd bitten into one). There was so little left in each one that I've not really drank that much at all, but it's more than I normally have. And it's cold.

I'm making gains on social media, if not with weights: I passed the 1300 follower mark on Twitter. Speaking of Twitter followers, Stanley Johnson (Boris' dad) is currently in the Australian jungle for I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. I was his 4,999^th follower.

So, hardly the Thompson-esque rollercoaster of drug-fuelled manic reportage I had in mind, but then, of course it wasn't. Fun though.

#tbt FHM Magazine

The last of the lads' mags is dead. RIP FHM, the bible for many a young man for 31 years. The February 2016 edition is the final issue. It held out longer than any of its competitors, so fair play to them.

I remember first finding them in WHSmiths at about 14 years old: a fair bit younger than their target audience at the time. As I got older, though, I found I didn't fall into the magazines as had other lads my age. I was too busy at college for magazine reading, and as my life was consumed by my course I had no money to buy the clothes or holidays they advertised and no interest in football or sports other than Muay Thai. When university came around I started reading magazines, but still found a lot of their journalism didn't speak to me. Their office-related jokes didn't strike, and their advice sections weren't particularly helpful.

What did strike me was the comedy- the articles were usually humorous and written by either a bloke I could see myself being mates with, or presumably by a group of writers who were likable and entertaining. Their “ten things” lists had obviously began as the kind of jokey, laddish email exchange that many of us had in the MSN days. Their adventure reports, where they would send their journalists do different exotic (and sometimes terrifying) parts of the world made me wish that more of the magazine was in that trend.

I thinned-out my magazines when I moved out in 2010, and all the lads' mags went to the Great Magazine Rack in the Sky (the recycling collection point). I regret this. Lads' mags are now a part of history, and something I don't have physically any more. I don't even have the DVDs that came on the front of them (which was usually the reason I bought them in the first place).

The internet in its vastness now provides more than enough entertainment, rendering such magazines obsolete. It was good while it lasted.

Three Strikes: Week 38

Friday night: Spinningfields bar strip with the lads.

Oast House- an old-style pub which recently broke a beer-tasting world record- was rammed, and the queue was horrific, but their top row was eclectic and held some impressive single malts and American bourbons. Good outdoor seating area perfect for this time of year.

Around the corner you'll find The Alchemist, one of the best bars in Manchester. We managed to get an unusually large group in there through a contact, but we were lucky. The music, décor, drinks and women are awesome. Turn up early and in a small group. And with money.

At home, the flat's a little smarter now, with a new shelf for more alcohol in the pantry, not that I'll be buying any more for the foreseeable future. I've also cooked a new recipe, for the first time in ages. Small steps.

In the gym I've packed 182 metres onto my 10-minute record on the rowing machine. This week was the first time I've even tried that movement in 15 months, so my general fitness must have improved. I'm also enjoying mixing a few classes in when I can. Somebody else spurring you on can get your heart and limbs working a lot better than you can do on your own.

Again, small steps.

Three Strikes: Week 6

I have drank a LOT over Christmas. At least, by my standards I have. I've been out loads and haven't been to the gym much. But what do you expect? I practically had a week off from the gym, as well as work, and when I started back up again I felt malnourished and frail. But I still beat a couple of records.

Cross trainer: up 0.02, during a warmup. I'd already hit three stikes on it during a time when I was doing 2 10-minute cross-trains per session, but I have always kept this as my first exercise.

Squats with weights: up 1 weight.

And what have I achieved in this, the first week of 2013? Well, aside from attending a hilarious new-year party at a mate's house, not a great deal. “Saved some money”, I suppose you could say as I didn't do the whole club thing for NYE. Chilled with the family. Survived work by pretending I wasn't so hungover that I thought I was having a stroke.

But I survived.

 

Smokey Mountain: officially the most repugnant "whiskey" known to man. DO NOT drink it.