Cibo Launches a Saturday Night in Manchester

Great night at the @cibomcr launch last night pic.twitter.com/78fYDyR6gS

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) June 26, 2022

New bar and restaurant Cibo opened in Manchester’s Great Northern Warehouse back in January, tucked away behind Impossible with neighbours Almost Famous burger joint and sports bar Pong and Puck nearby. 

The venue is a second branch of the chain to open in Greater Manchester after the success of the Liverpool Rd eatery, which opened its doors in early 2018. 

Last night Cibo launched Saturday Nights by Cibo, a weekly event playing RnB and funk. The building has a Spinningfields vibe, with upmarket décor and a cocktail menu mostly in the £9-10 range. In attendance on the night: Ibiza Weekender / Big Brother’s Sam Chaloner.

A good night with friendly staff. I can see Cibo being a staple part of a Peter St area night out.

Smoothie Diet Take 2: Review

Goddamn. Spinach and kale are gross, but highly effective for weight loss. I’d know: I’ve just spent the last weak eating mounds of the stuff, blended in smoothies. 

After years of antidepressants, I’ve ballooned into the 80kgs and had to suffer to keep my weight off. I’m now off meds, and am watching the weight drop. This is how I did it. 

For breakfast I allowed myself a banana, milk, fat free yoghurt, porridge oats and peanut butter smoothie. A good one for shutting off hunger pangs and having a boost in the morning. For lunch and tea: spinach, kale, fruit juice, ginger. Utterly grotesque but highly nutritious. You taste virtually nothing if you hold your nose, and it’s so simple to prepare. No meal planning beyond buying, blending and storing. 

There was food in the fridge that needed eating- yoghurt, milk, a few bits of fruit maybe, so they got mixed into the diet. Plus I had a supply of chicken stir fry. But towards the end of the week it was mostly leafy veg and fruit juice. They kept me fuller than I expected, and wasn’t suffering hunger as much as I’d expected. Perhaps I should have limited myself more. But, I started the week at 85.4kg and today weighed 80.28 – 82kg. I think the 2kg difference may have something to do with water take-on in the sauna / steam room. No PBs in the gym. 

I think if I stick at this diet- just veg and juice, 500mls a piece, 3 times a day- I’d be under 80kg very quickly. Will I fit back into my suits? Not yet. Let’s find out.

Smoothie Diet, Take 2

My nemesis this week pic.twitter.com/c99smVrbn9

— Matt Tuckey 🇬🇧 (@matthewtuckey) June 18, 2022

Back in February I attempted a smoothie diet based on a PDF guide a colleague gave me. It included a small amount of spinach and kale, and a ton of fruit. Unsurprisingly, this destroyed my sleep, sent me hyper and left me utterly exhausted. It was supposed to be a 2 week challenge. I lasted 4 days. 

That said, spinach and kale are superfoods, packed with nutrients. Protein, calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, iron, potassium, folate, vitamins A, C, K, are all in abundance. So surely, if I was going to attempt another smoothie diet, those 2 vegetables should be the staple ingredients and the only other things added in should be orange juice, allowing the veg to mix better than water does, and a little grated ginger for flexibility and digestion. 

The problem with starting a diet challenge like this is that we always have existing food in our fridges that either gets eaten or goes to waste. I have milk, chicken stir fry ingredients, fat-free yoghurt, bananas, blueberries, bread, and other foods that need using up, along with some existing spinach and kale. Stuff that will keep – cereals, porridge etc.- can be stowed away for the moment. 

There’ll have to be a transitional period where I munch through as much of the fresh stuff as possible then return to the supermarket for more leafy veg. I’ve bought extra smoothie shakers for this. 

The plan is, 500mls of veg, 3 times a day. I’m currently 85.4kg. In a week, I’d like to be under 80. At the gym, I’ll focus on bodyweight exercises and cardio. Connection to psychology: as I am now off antidepressants, my metabolism is accelerating. Weight loss should be easier, and hunger pangs have largely subsided. Considering how much shit I’ve eaten over the last week or so, mid 80s isn’t too bad. It should be a lot easier now to cut weight further.

The Action Hero Workout

Hollywood’s top trainer, Jorgen De Mey, is PT to the stars – Cindy Crawford, Fay Dunaway and Tom Sizemore are among his client list. He got Angelina Jolie in shape for Tomb Raider. Ben Affleck’s screen presence- at least his physique – can be attributed to De Mey’s training in preparation for the movie Armageddon. 

De Mey believes he can train you too. Published in 2005, The Action Hero Workout was a Secret Santa gift given among my family a few years ago, and it fell into my hands. 

In it, De Mey describes how he got actors into the peak of their physical condition in minimal time for movie roles. The underlying factor for fast results? A strict diet. 

I, of course, am writing this having hammered through a margarita pizza from Asda, so I have yet to actually try the process. But the book begins with the foundation of eating properly, as without that, nothing is going to work. The diet rules, extolled early on in the book, are insanely rigid: granulated sugar, jams, even meal replacement bars are all out. Not even egg yolks are allowed. It’s even suggested that, if you’re risking a restaurant, you ask chefs to make adjustments to your meals to cut down on calories. 

These are, of course, requirements for preparation for a screen role – something that is time-sensitive, so all the stops were pulled out on these occasions. It’s up to you if you follow them to a tee. But then, which Hollywood actor is hanging around in restaurants when they’re preparing for a role? 

The workout rota features clear, concise instructions on machines, reps, weight amounts and techniques. Weights and distances are in metric and imperial (a benefit of a book having a European author) and is packed with advice on workouts and diets for you, and what he laid out for specific actors and their roles. 

I’m tempted to try a workout project for a month, following the book’s instructions, eating what De Mey says to eat, practising the movements in the gym, and going for the runs. I’m actually taking part in an inflatable assault course run in July, and I’ve got a massive gut to get rid of. That's as good a reason as any.

The Wasp Factory / South Closes

Years ago, when I was in (now folded) feedback group Writers Connect, I was advised to look into Iain Banks books as a lot of his stories involved shocking, violent and twisted – and twisty- tales, much akin to the kind of short stories I was bringing in for review. I’d already read Surface Detail,  a SF novel released under the name Iain M Banks, and wasn’t bowled over by it, but I was assured it wasn’t a good place to start. 

Many years pass, and in the early half of 2022 I stumble across The Wasp Factory, Banks’ debut novel, in the second – hand shelf in Tesco. It turns out Writers Connect were right – it is my kind of thing. 

Frank, 16 and from an unnamed Scottish island, is an oddball to say the least. Sexless, angry and largely left to his own devices, he amuses himself with self-made contraptions usually for the purpose of torturing and killing small animals. 

Charming. 

Through Frank’s narration we steadily learn that he has, in the past, killed numerous family members, and got away with it. Through several flashbacks we see his past, his hatred of everyone around him, and his desire to take revenge on whoever is nearby. But Frank’s arrogant belief systems can only hold up for so long, and the few things he thinks he understands… he perhaps doesn’t. And he’s going to realise that. 

Eye-wateringly graphic, The Wasp Factory is constantly inventive and either hard to put down, or hard to get through, depending on your stomach. 

* 

This week Manchester institution and nightclub South closed its doors for good. After 27 years of partying – mostly indie nights – the era ends, and Oldham DJ Clint Boon of Inspiral Carpets – resident DJ of the last 20 of those years – played out the club’s tenure. I went a couple of times I think, both to house music nights, the second of which was to see now-deceased DJ / producer Erick Morillo. Great night.

On Sunday Night I Took my Last Mirtazipine

Disclaimer, before I get into this: I'm not your doctor. Don't copy me. 

Back at the start of March, I began to end my 4-year depression medication programme and detailed it on this blog. Titled ‘Renegade Psych Patient,’ the post described that I intended to come down to half dose on Mirtazipine. I felt that the NHS therapy I’d received, and the time spent (and am continuing to spend) in men’s support group Andy’s Man Club, was much more beneficial than just sticking a tablet in my gob and expecting it to solve my problems. 

Granted, that’s an unrealistic expectation anyway, but the course of antidepressants left me less than motivated, constantly hungry, and fat. And getting fatter. Mirtazipine slows metabolism, increasing fat reserves. This couldn’t continue. 

The plan was to take a pill once every two nights. I had a good wad of pills still to go, and reordered so I’d have plenty before coming off. 

A month later I updated, explaining that sleep had been a serious problem- Mirtazipine is taken at night to make you drowsy- but this settled after a few nights. As I slept better, my weight sadly wasn’t as settled, bouncing around between 81 and 87kg. 

On Sunday night I took my last Mirtazipine. I’m now officially off antidepressants. On Wednesday I was 84kg. No real change over the last couple of months. What about the gym? 

I've managed to add one more overhand chinup to my record, bringing it to 17, and got my plank time from 6:15 to 7:00. Dips: 10 more to 110.

I’m hoping that in the next month, there’ll be a noticeable difference. I’ll first have a few food treats, but then I’ll be back on clean food.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

In recent months, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, his 10th movie, has streamed on Netflix UK. It’s now been taken off, having made the top 10 for some weeks. In its pre-production days, movie gossip sites were shilling rumours about Tarantino’s biopic about the Manson Murders, conjuring gore-splashed images of murder victims used as entertainment for the masses. Tarantino = controversy, after all. 

When the film eventually released, viewers quickly realised it was a masturbatory, 3-hour fuckaround about 60s Hollywood, and the Manson connection fleeting and totally fictionalised. In the meantime, Margot Robbie dressed up as ill-fated Sharon Tate, and… watched herself in the cinema, and Leonardo DiCaprio brought to life Rick Dalton, a fictional burned-out western actor. 

Other fictional and real-life movie people drifted in and out of the narrative, but none of this seemed to mean anything: there was no overarching story or direction to the events: just ‘60s people doing ‘60s things. It took me several attempts to get through. So much opportunity, so little actual story. 

By this time, I’d already got the book- the allure of my favourite screenwriter – creator of the blandly shocking Reservoir Dogs and the culture-soup delight Pulp Fiction - turning his hand to novelisations was too intriguing. Recently, I dipped into it. 

Also fiction, the book weaves factual people and events with alternate-reality Hollywood: films that were never made (and some that were), people that never existed (and some that did), and a history in which 1800s Americans used the word ‘motherfucker.’ (Hint: they didn’t. Not commonly, anyway.) 

This discrepancy occurs in a chunk of the book set inside the movie-in-the-movie, if you like- Dalton’s movie plot is expounded though several chapters, describing familiar western scenarios: bounty hunters, revenge murders, kidnaps and brothers finding each other in a pre-Facebook desert-world. There’s more driving story inside this short western section- a few chapters- than there is in the whole of the rest of the book. 

There are further jarring inclusions when the book references Enter the Dragon (a film not released for another 4 years after the story is set), there are physical descriptions of female characters, but not so much the male ones, and the ending- the only interesting part of the film- is replaced with a phone riff between two actors. Weird. References to the real and fictional worlds, things that the characters wouldn't be conscious of, take us out of the moment and jar like an unspooled film reel.  Tarantino doubles down on this when he meta-references himself as winning an Oscar - a century after that section of the story takes place - for a film that doesn't actually exist, let alone received a nomination.

There are strengths: Cliff’s backstory is fleshed out with sinister details, and Tarantino’s writing style stays intriguing and eloquent. The book, if anything, quells any notion that he’s some 60’s hippie who got lucky for writing recycled stories with slick-talking, sweary protagonists. He can write. He just needs something to write about.