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.
5th
November: I bought a ticket for this through resale at the last
minute after my group had all bought theirs. I didn't think I was
that familiar with the lineup, but I
hadn't noticed Seth Troxler was in
there and a few videos I've seen of his sets were brilliant. And I
didn't want to leave my mates, so I thought, fuck it, debit card
time!
We
got there early. The Store Street venue
was heaving by 21:30- 9pm was the weirdly-early last entry time- and
our spot near the DJ booth in the main room was encroached by more
punters, gradually pushing us to the back of the hall. People were
generally friendly though.
Gratefully
there was a cash bar, so we didn't have to blow money on a sheet of
tokens like at Sankeys Warehouse.
The
night progressed from tech house from Gerd Janson into something a
little more melodic but still contemporary from Ricardo Villalabos
and Troxler, though to 70's funk from
Jackmaster and Marcel Dettmann right at the end of the night.
We
also dived into room 2 for Bicep.
Certainly the best laser show, and still great music. A smaller space
made for roasting temperatures.
We
left when it closed at 5am. We'd spent as long in there as we would
in a normal working day, but it flew by 20 times faster. Our group
had a variety of favourites, meaning we'd picked a good all-rounder.
Troxler and Villalabos really surprised me; I'd put them at the top.
Further
events should be great at The Warehouse Project, so keep your eyes on
their calendar. If an event is listed as sold out, it's worth also
checking Resident Advisor for
their tickets as there may be batches being sold there too.
Always photograph your ticket in case you lose it!
Great
memories from I think the second and third seasons of the show, which
I watched when I was fifteen to seventeen years old. Read book one a
few months ago. Still surprised how many jokes went over my head as a
teenager. Brilliantly scripted. There was a lull in quality in the
third season, but the show has held on for nearly two decades now and
is still going.
Currently
whipping through a number of short books, this being one of them,
after spending nearly a year reading the monstrously large Void Trilogy.
1922. The
tempo of the city had changed sharply, the buildings were higher, the
parties were bigger, the morals were looser and the liquor was
cheaper. The restlessness approached hysteria.
Thursday
night: went out for drinks with Manchester Cool Bars
to new bar Menagerie in
Spinningfields. There was a small crowd, but even on a quieter night
the bar offers its unique aerial shows. It's a little off the beaten
track if you're coming from the Deansgate end, but worth the walk to
the New Bailey area in Salford at the back of Spinningfields. The
zoo-themed restaurant offers fire eaters, aerial dancers, acrobats
and of course cocktails. Really enjoyed the experience.
We
then walked over to LIV for Socialite. The cast of ITV2's
Love Island were in the house,
including Adam J, (taller than
expected) Scott, Kady, and Terry, who I got a handshake off.
Stop the press. Album
here.
Enjoyed the night! (Aside from when some woman complained after I
told her she was like a “young, fit Michelle Obama.” Some
people will just not take a compliment.)
More
food, drink and house music updates to follow.
I've
been reading The Void Trilogy since the start of January, expecting
the three Science Fiction books to take me all year. Peter F Hamilton's books
chronicle the life of Edeard, a young officer in a distant-future
world who has strong mind-reading capabilities and is at first intent
on wiping out corruption in his home city, but soon becomes an almost
Jesus-like figure that people follow. Edeard's world exists inside
The Void, an artificial galaxy. Inigo, a young man who lives in The
Commonwealth- a star system outside of The Void, also develops a bit
of a cult following when he realises his dreams are being transmitted
through the 'giafield'- think intergalactic broadband- and these
dreams convince their followers, known as The Living Dream, to plan a
pilgrimage into The Void. This pilgrimage, it is expected, will
create a hyper-massive expansion, which will cause The Void to devour
planets in order to receive energy to sustain itself. The inhabitants
of the nearby galaxy, the Raiel, have sworn to stop the expansion by
any means necessary- they must go to war with The Living Dream.
By
the third book, a young divorcee named Araminta has accepted that she
is the second dreamer, and now her visions will encourage more people
to make the pilgrimage. This means various factions want her dead.
Breathe
in... breathe out. Still with me? Okay. As I started to read this
third book, around the start of April, the weather was horrific. It
snowed some time in that month, so I stayed in reading, but as summer
belatedly meandered into northern England I found less time for
books. When I did, I couldn't keep up with the plot and the science
infused into the story was going over my head. But, to the book's
credit, at least the science was there. The Temporal Void was more
fantasy than sci-fi, and was hoping The Dreaming Void would realign
to the genre it purports to be. It did.
To
start, the people of Makkathran- the pre-industrial-revolution-style
town inside The Void- start to latch on that banishing bandits into
the wilderness outside their town only shifts the problem on, and
Edeard finally introduces community service. Bravo. So the mentality
of the characters in Makkathran start to develop themselves.
Hamilton's
language, however, has remained static. Throughout the trilogy
there's lengthy and largely unnecessary details about Edeard's
fantasy-like sex life, and over-descriptive action sequences that
abate the story's pace at times when it needs to move the quickest.
'Raw excitement accelerated his heart, sending hot blood pounding
through his body.' Surely it was his heart rate, not his actual
pulmonary muscle? Unless someone was flinging it across the room
(which they weren't). And surely hot blood would have been pumping
through his body already, otherwise there'd be a slight problem with
the continuation of the plot: he'd be dead. Hamilton has a habit of
describing something in one way, then depicting the same thing with
other words. The extraneous descriptions do nothing to further
illustrate the scene or move along the plot.
Another
example: 'Marius had been fascinated by The Heart and the notions it
sang of. There was really no other way of describing it.' Well, that
isn't a description in the first place. But Hamilton then disproves
his own suggestion on the same page, by describing it as 'vast' and
'aloof.' No wonder The Evolutionary Void is 700 pages. The credit
crunch must really have been hammering Pan Macmillan in 2010, as
nobody seemed to do any editing.
During
yet ANOTHER sex scene, or at least leading up to one, a female
character says, 'I learned about reflexes. Particularly the
involuntary ones.' As opposed to what? Voluntary reflexes? Biotopics
seem to suggest that voluntary and involuntary responses are separate, and that reflexes fall under 'involuntary,' which falls in line
with what I remember from secondary school biology. Aviva health site
backs this up: 'A reflex is an involuntary response to a
stimulus.'
How
can Britain's leading Science Fiction writer not know that
distinction?
So,
yeah, wads of science, if you can grasp that kind of thing, in and
amongst the inaccuracies. A thoroughly ridiculous story but somewhat enjoyable, although hard work. I appear to have been reading this
ridiculous book for SEVEN MONTHS. I'm all Sci-Fi'd out now. As the
Monty Python team would say...
“Only
kings, presidents, editors and people with tapeworms have the right
to use the editorial 'we'.”
-Mark
Twain, US author and humourist
Twain
missed one out- people who hammer Meetup to stay social also have that right as far as I'm concerned. He died
106 years ago though, so I'll let him off.
I
might try a few of them- I hope they're genuinely helpful. I find a
lot of these things tend not to be, though, and I've come away from
motivational meetups usually not feeling any more motivated or
enlightened than I was before I walked through the door. There have
been charlatans before Meetup; there still will be as it grows.
Certainly leave a comment if you've been to any of these and tell us
how it was for you.
Away
from motivational groups, Manchester House and Techno Meetup is
possibly the group I was looking for years ago before RnB became as
popular as it is. I've not joined a new Meetup group in ages as
Manchester Cool Bars has been great for me, and the friends I met
though another group (that we were all collectively booted out of) I
tend to meet up with away from Meetup, but I might give this one a
shot. Likewise, Clubbers and Ravers: Nightowls sounds equally tempting. (That said, I just joined and saw that the
organiser is the same person that booted loads of us
out of his other aforementioned group. This was because said organiser didn't get
invited to a party one of us threw. Let's not go there.)
Meetup
is getting huge- new groups are opening every day in a number of
different niches. They aren't all just 'going out' groups and
motivation groups- I don't tend to promote the more random ones but
it's worth a look on the site as Hoop Classes, for instance, might be your thing. The range of groups in
Manchester alone is broadening exponentially as are the opportunities
to do the things you want to do and meet the people you want to meet.
