Monday, 7 May 2018

Andy's Man Club Oldham Turns 1: Come Along


On the blog: a bizarre, chip-infested circus display, a handful of street fights and a local celeb as a 16-year-old.

In the future: men's support group Andy's Man Club Oldham celebrate their first birthday in Milan in Lees, Friday night from 7pm. The group has been a massive help to me and others over the last year, so I sure won't miss the party. Also I've not been out in Lees for a long time, so it'll be interesting. Milan is a public bar so it's an open invite. See the Facebook event!

Sunday, 6 May 2018

Who's Driving Wayne Rooney's Car While He's Banned?

Thursday daytime- got my dates wrong and went to a meeting that wasn't scheduled for another month, so had a quick scout around. Found Wayne Rooney's car at the end of Deansgate, sporting a disability blue badge.


I'm assuming he wasn't driving, considering he isn't disabled, particularly not physically as would be required for a blue badge, but also considering he's banned until September 2019.

Friday night- dropped into 20 Stories in Spinningfields, the rooftop terrace bar on the ever-developing Hardman Square.

Incredible views but horrendous waiting times. We got there at 9 and the queue went from a small handful to a giant line. Once in the building and out of the elevator, you're then led into the opulent bar area. Nicely designed, with quiet house music passing the time, but 50 minutes to get served on a Friday night is absurd. I dread to think what a Saturday is like. As part of the bar is open to the sky, the queue would have been larger than normal as everybody wanted to enjoy the fresh air.



It's well worth a visit, but I'd recommend going before sunset and at a time when the queue isn't so large.

Finally finished reading The Private Eye Annual 2017, which I got for Christmas and have been reading since then. I've not really applied myself to reading recently- I've had a lot of other concerns like money and the current government. I've said enough about them. So I found the political satire occasionally funny but frequently annoying, as there's no laughing matter about seeing your income plummet and being hounded for 3 figures at the same time. Thanks, Tories.

Tonight: Carnival of Fools, circus act extraordinaire, in Impossible with Manchester Cool Bars. Last call to get involved!

Saturday, 5 May 2018

A Spoonful of Turmeric Helps Depression Go Down?



Anyone cook with yellow Indian spice turmeric? If so, you could unwittingly be protecting yourself from depression and other mental health issues, according to Psychiatry Advisor

I occasionally cook with it, largely because I have no clue about spices so this one seems as good as any other, and also because of the aforementioned research. I'm a bit sporadic with it, though, so alongside my occasional use of it in cooking I'm going to swallow a flat teaspoon of it every morning for the next month. I'll be gauging its effectiveness by paying attention to my feelings, seeing whether I push myself on to develop more confidence, to see what actually happens if I do build the confidence that I want, and also I'll focus on the same movements at the gym to see it it helps me physically.

Let's not beat around the bush: approaching women makes me so nervous that my knees feel like they're going from under me and I feel like I'm going to puke. So a lot of the time I don't even bother. Now, if Sertraline doesn't do what I want it to, I don't see how a ground-up root is going to do the trick, but who am I to say. Essentially, regardless of anything I put in my body, I need to accept that some women will be happy that I decided to talk to them. But whatever, let's see if turmeric does that.

The movements:

10-minute cross train
10-minute run
Chest press
Horizontal dumbell fly

I'll review this in 5 weeks.

Wednesday, 2 May 2018

Dips Smashed



Just over a week ago I planned to eat clean until I could beat one of a handful of PBs.

I've kept the knee support on, I've brought my speed up during running (I'm still a long way off a PB on this) and I've attempted all the movements I set out to. As predicted, dips was the first movement to be beaten. I'm now at 75. I last beat this in January. The two oldest movements- 10-minute run and chest press- I've worked on, but I'm nowhere near a PB.

So I'm going to have a few sweet treats, then I'll go back to eating clean and hit the remaining, very old PBs.

Tuesday, 1 May 2018

NaPoWriMo 2018 Ends

A post shared by Matt Tuckey (@matttuckey) on


National Poetry Writing Month, or 'April,' as it is otherwise known, has come to a close for another year. I perhaps could have knuckled down with it a bit more. I managed to upload a poem on 3 out of 4 Wednesdays, and I have a small handful of poems still to put up.

I had a lot going on this month, and the prompts that the site offered often just didn't really sit with me. But I had my own ideas, and I've worked on a few creating a number of other drafts. I'm going to get them fed back at Writers Connect before uploading them here every Wednesday.

One of the setbacks to poetry is the time it takes to make lines rhyme, if that's what you're planning on doing. I've wanted to write a few rap verses. I managed one. It takes a lot of patience to say what you want to say and match it to vowels in other words. A blog post like this one, that I'm bashing up as quickly as possible, I can upload to the blog as fast as I can think and type the thoughts. Poetry takes a hell of a lot longer, so the output is a lot smaller.

I still want to work on rhyme though, so stay tuned for more.

Sunday, 29 April 2018

RIP Avicii


So Dom Joly answered Popbitch's Baboon vs Badger question. Insightful.

RIP Avicii AKA Tim Bergling. The cause of death is still officially 'unknown,' although it's rumoured he was struggling and was likely a suicide. His problems- depression- are issues that affect 1 in 3 people. I can't help think that even if there were depression support groups in Avicii's home town like the one I attend, it would have been difficult for him to access that support given his schedule and celebrity status.

Every time a famous person takes their own life- which is pretty frequently- I'm reminded of a book signing I once attended with journalist Neil Strauss. He'd just released Everyone Loves You When You're Dead, an account of his many celebrity interviews an encounters, and what he'd learned from being a small part of so many of their lives.

'Fame won't make you feel any better about yourself. Many celebrities who work hard for their success believe that celebrity and money will resolve their feelings of insignificance, insecurity, worthlessness, or disconnection. But, like Eric Clapton and Brian Wilson, they soon learn that rather than fixing one's flaws, fame- and the “leap of consciousness” it takes to deal with it- magnifies them.'

At a book signing I heard Strauss explain that, if you're planning on getting famous, it's best to sort out your problems before you get plucked from obscurity.

You might be familiar with Wake Me Up and other more recent songs Avicii made. I was more a fan of his earlier, piano-based tracks.




Saturday, 28 April 2018

Pointers for using Smartphones when you have Memory Difficulties


I've been using my Sony Xperia X for about 8 months now. Generally speaking, the notetaking facilities like OmniNote are superb. Athough it's been a huge help for me in terms organisation, I've come across a few sticking points. Some of these affect memory issues, some are more general annoyances that would be a problem for anyone.
  1. Facebook notifications don't always load properly. They take a long time to refresh, and occasionally your notifications page will appear blank.
  2. Instagram stories, temporary content to rival Snapchat, have become more popular since their introduction in the summer of 2016. I'm finding that the video content in these stories frequently freeze, and that you can only move on from this by tapping the screen to skip that particular story segment. I'm not sure whether this is an issue with internet connectivity or the phone's processor, but I don't seem to have this issue with videos on Facebook, for example, or videos on Insta's news feed.
  3. This Xperia and GiffGaff pay-as-you-go network provider allows me 4G coverage. It's great for fast data transmission, but most of Oldham's 4G coverage is abysmal. The phone can be slow to receive data.
  4. Another abysmal factor is the battery, which barely lasts a day. I think it's getting worse, and only having owned the phone for such a short space of time doesn't bode well for the future. When you rely on your phone to store the information that others would remember, running out of battery is an undeniable stress.
The main lesson I've learned from this is that it isn't just your own life that's going by while your face is glued to your Insta story feed- it's your battery life too. When you use your phone to stay organised, don't blitz your battery by scrolling through Insta stories endlessly.

If you're not familiar with Insta stories, check out this guide, which will probably encourage you to do exactly what I'm telling you not to.