Freckles and Misery

Down with Art! Up with Bingo!

I experienced my first sniff of bingo this week and had been sufficently seduced by Gala's advertising campaign to expect 'a right laugh' and people throwing tenners in the air. That all goes on, of course.

What the advert doesn't show is that there is no one employed by Gala who will explain how to play the game to you. In fact, the two people we asked questions to ('we've never done this before, what should we do?' and 'where do we get pens?') looked at us as if they had never even conceived of the notion that anyone might dare to enter the bingo hall without being fully conversant in its ways. Maybe you have to go to classes if you want to marry into it? But you can only convert if you're a man. Or your mother went. Or you're from Byker. Or something.

Luckily, the other players were more keen to assist. A lone woman who sat across from us was particularly helpful. She had a pirate's facial expression, sort of screwed up and oo-arr-ish. Instead of oo-arr she said things like 'this one's one line, two lines, full house' and 'yous aren't having much luck'. After every game she told us the number that would have won her her fortune if it had come up, so for most of the night the conversation went along the lines of this: pirate lady: 'forty nine!' sarah: 'ooh, nearly'! me:(sympathetic noise).

Pirate lady also stacked up a line of pints to get her through the main session. I saw a horrible vision of the future.

Still on for next week?