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.
A
confession: I'm 36 and have never been paintballing. I was out with
Young Professionals in Manchester a while ago and the conversation
turned to different activities we could do, rather than the now
tiresome 'getting pissed.' I had loads of ideas, so we settled on one
of them. Hence, on Sunday afternoon we're going to Manchester Paintball Arena,
Nile Mill in Chadderton, to shoot each other with paint.
It's going to be SICK. I believe some pain is involved. Don't say you weren't warned. Oh,
and wear loose clothing. You get your overalls, mask, gun and a ton
of balls as part of the price. There are 15 of us so far- make it 16!
Former
Miss Manchester and boxing ring girl Sara Beverley Jones joined the panel, with makeup
provided by Sean Maloney.
The proceedings were presented by former Miss Swimsuit UK national
winner Poppy Haskell.
Sponsors
included mobile phone accessory onlline shop R8 Media.
The
top 3 winners, Poppy explained, go through to the UK final with a
chance to represent the UK in Mexico. As well as a final winner for
the heat, the competition also included prizes for Miss Congeniality
(Emma, no.9) and Miss Social Media (Cassie, no.6). Overall winner:
no.3, Danielle!
I
was talking to a doorman friend on Deansgate a while ago about
nutrition, and about how to stop eating junk food. “Just think,”
he said, “you put it in your mouth, and it tastes good for a couple
of seconds, and that's it. Is it really worth those few seconds of
pleasure for what it does to you?”
He's
right- I'm scratching around for things that I like, and finding
giant bars of Galaxy chocolate. How embarrassing. It really isn't
worth it.
Instead,
I've got Netflix (I'm late to the party but Breaking Bad is
incredible) and loads of books to read. I've got my friends, and the
city of Manchester. I've got the gym. These are all neural pathways-
routes in my brain for finding pleasure. There's plenty out there to
enjoy, and no reason to binge on one thing, especially not one that
has robbed me of a six-pack for the last 9 years.
So.
Here we go again. I'm busy with the move (as mentioned yesterday) but
I'm not going to slip this time. I'll get in gym sessions where
possible, but I won't get my enjoyment from food- I'll get it from
wherever else, and meanwhile I'll get in as much veg as possible. I
should open a cookbook for once, too.
I
was 86.3kg on Tuesday. I want to be 79. And I want to fit into my
suit trousers again. I've already cut out junk food, and I'm not even
missing it this time. I broke the clean-eating habit when I went for
cocktails in Tattu a while back,
and only 1 mate (out of fucking 10 down to come) turned up. I'm not
going to be let down by the meetup scene any more. I might drop into
other people's events but I'm not putting any up myself for the
foreseeable.
I
might beat some PBs at the gym along the way, but I'm not putting
them as my specific goals, meaning I can mix in rope flicks, burpee
chinups, box jumps and bag work along with the likes of chest press
and leg press, with which I have got PBs.
You
know those Creature Comforts claymations that Nick Park makes?
The
principal of this is, you take audio recordings from the public, and
turn them into animation without altering the sound. You flesh out
the dialogue. Park is the master of this.
I
was wondering how this might be transferred to prose: to take and
audio recording and turn it into a fully described scene. So I
surreptitiously recorded my parents discussing me moving house.
House
Discussion 1
“Okay,”
Dad mumbles. “We haven't got time to look at everything else.” He
looks over the spread of paperwork, filling the dining room table.
“Have I gone right through all the recommendations, or do I keep
getting sidetracked?” He picks up a stapled bundle out of maybe 30
identical-looking forms.
Mum
turns to me. “Do you want a hot chocolate?”
“Drains...”
Dad reads on.
“Please,”
I reply.
“The
electrics,” Dad changes course. “I think we know what we got with
the electrics,” he mumbles.
No,
I think, YOU know. I haven't got a clue what you're talking about,
but asking will only elongate the evening's proceedings and I doubt
I'll retain any of it in half an hour's time.
Mum
stands. “Doesn't he say it seems to be a modern... system or
something?”
“Well
he doesn't know that it's been rewired; I'm surprised he
doesn't actually mention the question of rewires.” Dad stares into
the paperwork, a vast chasm of formal terms and heavy legal language,
and in that second, somewhere between the ageing Times New Roman and
his vocal cords, there's something of an epiphany, a realisation.
“Oh, well, I say 'rewired,' It's gonna have been added to over the
years, but a hundred and twenty years ago they would only have had
one... socket in, wouldn't they?”
Mum
hasn't moved from the table, now standing over Dad as he muses.
“Uh-huh.”
“A
hundred and twenty years ago they might not have had any sockets in.”
“Uh-huh.”
Dad
is in danger of extrapolating, of musing on the many possibilities
that might have occurred, and once he begins, we know- Mum and I-
that it's hard to get him back on course with the facts.
House
Discussion 2
“Gutters.
And they're all looking up the... yeah. Okay.” He reads on. “We'll
insure both party walls... yeah, okay. That's, uh, we're gettin' a
builder in to look at the, uh, a roofer to look at everything. Cavity
ties.” Dad makes a popping noise as he thinks. He can't think
without that short exhalation of breath. “Yeah, well, I mean, what
do you think about having the cavity ties, uh, reviewed? Y'know, you
can whip one out and have a look at it.”
There's
a pause as Mum stares into the varnished oak of the dining room
table. “How much money do you want to spend before you decide to
buy it?” She chuckles lightly as she asks this, tremors of
exasperation and impatience in her voice. “I don't know.”
“Well,
how much would it cost to actually have the job done?” Dad is oblivious to Mum's dwindling patience. He knows,
of course, that if anyone in this room could guess a price, it's him. “I don't
think it's a big job but some firms are talking about big sums of
money, but...”
I've
heard Dad say this before. It shouldn't be a big job. Without
fail, it always turns
out to be a bigger job than he anticipates.
“Bearing
in mind,” Mum says, like the dining room is actually a board room,
her years in education management evident in her delivery, “that
the surveyor puts down everything
that could potentially be a problem...”
“Uh-huh.”
He stares into the thick wad of formal paperwork, a cross-examination
of property-related questions to which I sure as shit don't have
answers. They're all surveys that are required, searches of various
types to be done by people who's jobs I would never understand,
structural issues to be assessed... problems that will take way
longer than I'll be given to solve.
Hence,
now approaching 37, I'm asking my retired parents to help. Or am I? I
raised the idea of moving out. They found the property we're now
trying to get me into. And they are driving the move-out process. The
reality is, of course, I couldn't do this without them. Not even the
beginnings.
“Because
he has to cover himself.” Mum leans back in her chair, formal,
convinced in herself.
Somewhere
in the kitchen an electrical appliance is beeping, something that
wasn't there when I was living with them.
I have to move out of my flat. My neighbour, an apparent heroin
dealer if recent graffiti is anything to go buy, burgled me six
months ago. The police couldn't find the evidence, so he's still
living in a flat a few doors down. I saw him on the street a few
hours before it happened- he was asking me about what he'd seen
through my kitchen window, probably from the footpath behind my
house, that he uses to walk his dog.
He
doesn't have that dog any more. Pets aren't allowed in these flats. I
guess Housing nailed him for that, at least.
A
few months ago my dad showed me an estate agent advert for a place a
mile or so away, just before the Saddleworth border. We took a look
around, and, for once, there didn't appear to be anything wrong with
it. Solidly built, owner only moving out to move in with his missus,
in a nice area... it seemed perfect.
I
was waiting for the problem. There always is one.
“Bearing
in mind it's an a hundred-and-twenty-year-old house,” Dad says.
Mum
vocalises in agreement.
“And
if there are cavity ties... I mean, there is a dispute, really,
between the current owner, who thinks it's...”
A
great night of piano house and old school tracks from Retro Events. I managed to say hi
to Russ Morgan and Paul Roberts, the remaining group members, at the
end of the night.
I
told them I saw them in Ampersand in 2008... and that I lost my
virginity to someone I met that night. Couldn't have done it without
you, guys.
On
the blog: a trip to Gorilla to see K Klass. In the city: a few things...
New
meetup group Manchester 20s - 30s opens.
The organiser has only bought the 50 member-limit package on meetup
but she's set up a
Facebook group to
continue the organising. Seems an effective cost-saving technique to
me as Meetup can get expensive if you're paying for the group.
On
Saturday night I'll be at VIVA nightclub
for the Manchester heat of Miss Swimsuit UK 2019. Think gorgeous girls in
bikinis, a smart club, and a swarm of reality TV stars. I'm going
with Manchester Cool Bars and Clubs. Tickets
are £20 on the door. There are some online but I'm not sure how to
access them. Anyway, Manchester Cool Bars are meeting in nearby Dog Bowl before diving into the club.
It
was great catching up with people I hadn't seen in ages, along with
some regular friends. I'm friends with the organiser of this group,
and I'm one of the hosts, so I want to be clear at this point that
the criticisms I'm about to make are about specific individual
attendees, not the group itself. I've talked to a lot of cool people
who are relaxed, decent people who talk and listen, who chat to
anyone, and are generally positive people. But I find that the bigger
the meetup, the more I bump into difficult, needlessly critical,
arrogant people who don't listen and don't have the level of social
skills that you'd expect from someone in their late 20s or early 30s.
But then, you find that in every sphere of life, I guess.
You
might have seen next week's Saturday night meetup with Manchester
Cool Bars and Clubs, which I'm hosting, to
Viva for the Manchester heat of Miss Swimsuit UK,
a competition held across the UK every year. I've been ripped by a
few people- usually guys- for running this meetup. It's been slated
as misogynistic, (despite the CEO, the costume designer, the DJ and
most of the judges being women) and that me running that event makes
me look bad. I've explained that, at nearly 37 years old, I'm past
giving a fuck about what some arrogant bloke from Oldham thinks. Or
anyone else, for that matter.
I
would still recommend people give this a shot. Among the group I
found people who liked my kind of music, who I might be doing other
nights out with soon.
Saturday
night saw another big meetup, held by Manchester Megamix.
we met in Tusk in the Northern Quarter, a small bar which we filled,
and again was a mixed bag. Some great, cool people, and some
difficult ones: in the latter case the same people, in fact, whom I'm
convinced use Meetup as a crux to hold up a semblance of a social
life, as nobody will invite them to anything else.
Arseholes
aside, I'd still recommend people give Meetup a shot. It's growing by
the day as people try it out.
Away
from Meetup, I read Cowboys and Aliens, a graphic novel which was
made into a movie a few years ago. I found it at Manchester comic
fair for a quid, so I wasn't expecting a masterpiece. I thought,
there must me more than just cowboys and aliens beating the crap out
of each other, right?
Hmm.
Very silly. I checked out the movie adaptation starring Daniel Craig.
Also
dumb. Lazers blow up a wooden saloon, but don't set fire to the parts
that weren't in the immediate beam? If you're going to do 'sci-fi,'
get the 'sci' part right.
