Bogan Bingo, 12th March

If there’s one thing that can be said about the Aussies it’s that they now how to party. So as soon as you let them loose on bingo, you know it’s going to get a lot messier than most bingo you’ve ever played (unless you’re familiar with Rebel Bingo).

The name of the game is Aussie chavs, or Bogans, and our hosts for the evening really ham this up. Honestly, they are so immersed in their roles, high-octane the whole time, I don’t know how they find the energy to do it on a weekly basis. The Slug in Fulham is completely taken over for the evening by the Bogan boys and their bingo ballerz and there are lots of drink offers on as well as some dude food to soak it up. Thirty wings for £7.45? FIFTY for £9.45? What a bargain! We got there quite early and apart from the cheesy songs being played, wondered where the 'bogan' was going to come in. That is, until Trevor and his co-host come in, fully ‘okkered up’ with mullets, vests, denim cut-off shorts and strewth! some fruity language to get you going. Music is full throttle and you just have to be even louder to compete and claim your prize (though luckily they use microphones so you can hear the numbers being called).

There are a few rules. Or should I say rituals. To do it right, if you got bingo you had to do rock horns, grab your crotch, clench your butt and shout ‘BLOODY BINGO!’ And that was just to start. For any number ending in one, you were encouraged to shout ‘up your bum’, for 55 you gave everyone near you high fives, for any number ending in 3, one half of the room drinks, any number ending in 7 the other half does. Six meant ‘your tits’ and if any girls actually got them out, you got a drink for each nipple. This number didn’t seem to make an appearance until near the end of the night when plenty of people were liquored up enough to actually do it!  What with all of this, plus the music blaring and the Bogan Boys dancing, there wasn’t much time to play the actual bingo, so it was limited to two games. Usual rules applied – you were looking for a line, two lines and then full house. And yes, professional dabbers were used.

We were heartily and strenusouly warned - this is all about winning. Taking part counts for nothing! If you weren’t a winner, you were a loser. And who would want ot be a loser when there were such fab prizes as a framed photo of a panda on a slide, and a cereal dispenser, not to mention a Rick Astley dustpan and brush! But there were serious prizes on offer as well such as bottles of wine, £25 bar tabs and a real trip to Egypt!! To win a prize you first had to get bingo, and then you were invited up to pick from the board of famous bingo bogans including a fat kid of the week and Jesus (long hair, sandals, water into wine – of course he’s an Aussie!).

Then at half time there was an air guitar competition (though no one really beat the hosts at their own game) and there was also a round of guess the 80s or 90s theme tune for a free drink.

The music wasn’t necessarily my thing but it was hard to fall for the sheer brute charm of the event and the music all adds to the theme. It was mainly 80s and 90s cheesy rocky anthems like Black Betty, Dancing in the Dark, Summer of 69 which you can bop to while the hosts dance around like loons. Everything is turned up to 11 – this is ROCK bingo. They don’t just spin those balls, there’s a smoke machine and plenty of tongue action!

The grand prize is well worth entering for that alone (as usual I won a sum total of nothing – bingo is not kind to me) but it is an absolute blast. The pub stays open way after midnight and you’re encouraged to stay and keep the party going. But unfortunately, it was on the wrong side of town for me (it’s one negative point) so I couldn’t stay to see what kind of carnage it descended into.

YOLO Bingo, 16th July

I’ve got a bit of a thing for bingo and as soon as I heard there was a new bingo night on at Oslo in Hackney, I knew I had to see what it was all about. This one was entitled YOLO Bingo, and I had to know what was so YOLO about it. Kind of implies a wild night, doesn’t it?

In this case, I think the YOLO was rather ironic. Our host for the evening, Nimrod, is a rather nerdy, straightlaced, deadpan caller – the very opposite of what YOLO seems to be all about. Not for Nimrod are dirty, made up bingo calls. No, for him: bus routes. ‘No 73. As in, the bus.’ Or, he might get a little risqué: ‘No 22: My age… No 69: Your girlfriend’s age’. But that was rather funny in its own way.

In between the six rounds of bingo were six rounds of a pub quiz which could only be said to have a hipster theme. The first round was exclusively about the London Fields area, which was infuriating as I know it fairly well but still didn’t quite know the answers. What was the name of the café that closed because of the building subsidence next to Oslo? What is the name of the first coffee shop you come to on Broadway Market? Etc etc. Or there was a round that was mainly Camden themed – on what square did Amy Winehouse live, for example?

Turns out my team won the quiz but that could only be because the questions were quite fiendish and everyone else did so poorly, not because we did so well.

Bingo was pretty straightforward – first person to get a line then the first person to get a full house would each win prizes, and they even had proper bingo tabbers. If two people shouted out at the same time, it was a tie break that had to be solved by guessing how many Twitter followers a celebrity had. In fact, to win the grand prize of the quiz (I don’t know what that would have been) we had to play Twitter-follower Play Your Cards Right whereby they showed you pictures of two celebrities and you had to say who had the most followers. I was doing very well until the last one where I discovered to my horror that Harry Styles has vastly more Twitter followers than Beyonce. Best get tweeting Bey – 8 tweets is no way to build a following.

But we still won a £20 bar tab for our efforts. All the prizes were either £10 (for a line) or £20 for a full house. My meetup group made up most of the participants so we just kept on winning bar tab after bar tab. We had so much money to spend, we didn’t even spend it all! Not bad going for a game that only cost a quid to enter! If you like bingo, or just like drinking, get on down to Yolo Bingo!

Butchery Bingo, 29th April

Props to my friend Nick for bringing to my attention another night in London that does bingo with a twist. So far I've been to Rebel Bingo, and Musical Bingo, so naturally I had to try Butchery Bingo as well. It promised music, silly games and alcohol. 

Butchery Bingo is a lot more closely related to the kind of bingo your mum or your nan is likely to play. A sheet of six bingo 'books' were handed out to everyone playing and you first had to get a line, then two lines then a full house (full box). You play as a team and it's not immediately obvious how this works in a bingo setting as you're all playing with your own books. However, the team element does come in handy if one of your teammates wins something. Not only does the individual get a [dubious] prize, but the team is then treated to a round of shots, or if you've won the full house, sorry, full box, a bottle of wine! Free alcohol - I like it.

The ultimate prize is a voucher for a £100 bar tab but I'll get to that.

We got there at about 7. It was my first time at the Shoreditch Butchery since it (and XOYO) had been taken over by the people who run the Old Queen's Head in Angel. On Foursquare it's described as a dive bar and it does have a grungy feel to it, but it's furnishings and fittings are far too polished for it to own that description. It's a cool place. A mural of a skull on one wall and a relief of two faces over the bar which is very striking when the mood lighting is on, give the place an edgy feel which foes with the comfy, slightly shabby booths and other seating. 

At first we couldn't figure out who might be our host for the evening. Then, when he turned up there would have been no prizes for guessing it was he. Boogaloo Stu turned up with his foot high pink wig, what can only be described as a babygro and heels. Bingo was afoot!

A rather nice touch to lend itself to the kitchiness of the evening was that he had a proper bingo cage that you turn to jumble up the balls with the numbers on. In a way reminiscent of Rebel Bingo, Boogaloo Stu had his own sordid, filthy bingo calls for each number (such as 78, watch my vagina dilate, 78). Well except for the 73 (the bus to Islington, 73) and 47 which he just claimed to despise. 

For once, I actually won something! I was the very first winner of the night, getting one line on my bingo card, for which I was treated to a prize of a set of coloured pens. These came in handy when we moved on to the picture round. Waste not want not - at the end of some of the rounds you turn your books over and on the back you have to illustrate one of the numbers. Sexually. The first one was kind of easy - 69 lends itself to depiction of the carnal variety. Later in the night, for 27, a little more imagination was required. Luckily I remembered my newly won pens and was able to do myself justice. 

So far so fun, but Butchery Bingo and Boogaloo Stu had another trick up its sleeve. Or should I say bum. For one of the round of games, and then again in the final, was the charming game called 'Penny in the Crack'. You are probably starting to imagine what this entails and you are probably along the right lines. You take a penny, you put it in your bum crack (no! Not under the clothes!) and then you clench it there while you waddle over to a pint glass and drop it in. Poor Stu didn't get many volunteers for this game. Clearly not enough alcohol had been imbibed. But at the end all the people who'd won the full houses through the night had to take part if they wanted to be in with a chance to win the grande prize - the bar tab (to be redeemed at your leisure).

However, as it was a grand final, it wasn't a penny but a pickled onion that you had to secrete and release. One girl totally nailed it.

So yeah, the night was fun but it somehow it didn't manage, despite Stu's best efforts to be Fun with a capital 'F'.  Just before the final round he did manage to pull some people up for an impromptu disco which I think really perked people up. But there could have been a lot more people there which would have helped with the atmosphere. Was it because it was a Monday? Very possibly. Or maybe it's just because no one knows about it. Their website isn't exactly a mine of information and their promotion of it is sporadic on facebook. So I felt a little sad for Butchery Bingo - go one and show it some love people! 

Rebel Bingo at Village Underground, 14th September

Bingo is not my game. When I went to Musical Bingo I didn’t win a single thing. When I’ve been to normal bingo ‘down the club’ with my boyfriend’s mum, I have had similar scant success. And Friday night at Rebel Bingo was no exception. I didn’t cross off a single line. It didn’t help, that despite it being a bingo night, very little bingo is actually played, thus further slimming my chances. It’s clearly just a ruse for a piss up.

We got there at about 8:30 as instructed and upon entry were given our book with our bingo lines in it. This consisted of two sheets of paper – one sheet per game. That's right. Only two games of bingo in the entire night are played. An hour or so later, the seething mass of revellers were called to attention and the first game of bingo began. I seem to remember it followed the usual pattern – prize for a line, two lines, full house etc. All very conventional. Except that most people are pretty drunk by now, and probably not paying that much attention. How to focus them? Well, firstly there were some very desirable prizes on offer. I particularly coveted the shiny disco ball (having no regard to the fact I would have had nowehere to store it at home) but alas, as you know, I wasn’t successful. The second way to keep the rabble paying attention, is to come up with the filthiest bingo calls imaginable. You know the thing – what you say so you know which number has been called - ‘Two Fat Ladies’ for 88 etc. Of course, the traditional bingo calls are supposed to have some relevance to the number that has just come up. These ones . . . not so much. I can’t now recall specifically any of the terms. I tried to write down on my hand a reference to the more lurid ones but as you can see, that didn’t work. 

You can probably just about make out the word ‘cunt’ at the bottom there

Basically, if you think along the lines of “26, sweaty flaps, 26” or "48, my boyfriend licks my greasy minge juice, 48", you won’t be far off.

After the climax of the first game there’s more drinking and more dancing, and then the final game of the evening. By this point everyone is pretty pissed and the markers that have been handed out for crossing off your numbers, have been put to more creative uses. Why do people like drawing on each other so much? It’s a mystery. 

Christ, who are these bozos?

The bingo was all over by 11 but you were strongly encouraged to stick around for the party. I had plans to go to the rugby the next day, and go out Saturday night so I didn’t want to stay for too long. However, every time I got ready to leave, they put on another song that I wanted to stay and dance to. They were playing crowd pleasers, but without straying too far into cheese, so it was actually stuff I like (yes, I’m aware that sounds a bit pretentious). For example, they played Chase & Status, but not their big hit Sweet Sensation – instead they played No Problem, which I much prefer. And there was a bit of Marilyn Manson thrown in, and Here Comes the Hotsteppter. A broad range to suit all tastes. Eventually though, the music seemed to be descending further and further into dubstep which was good motivation to finally leave, way too late to get the last tube home.

Rebel Bingo was held in Village Underground, which is also on my list. I have actually been here before, and so could have technically crossed it off, but I wanted to come back and experience it when it was being used as a club venue. The last time I went it was for a much more sedate special Book Slam event. Village Underground is quite a cavernous space when there aren’t lots of tables and chairs set out, which is good as there was a lot of people. There was a stage area at one end of it from where the numbers were called, a bar set back somewhere in the middle, and then the entrance at the other end, which was a little bit raised. This was where we were and provided an impressive view of the throng below. God knows how you could make yourself heard (though people did) once you had Bingo, or how they managed to get to the stage to claim their prize. It’s a pretty ‘cool’ space that is used to hosting parties from the Blitz to Mixmag nights so they obviously know what they’re doing for busy nights and have a good sound system. Drinks weren’t any more expensive than you’d expect at £3.50 for a can or £4.00 for a spirit and mixer – we stuck to cider in a can.

I met someone in the pub beforehand who had been to Rebel Bingo before who said the success of the night seemed to go hand-in-hand with the venue.  As this was my first, I can’t compare it to other nights, but I had a really, really good night and Village Underground seemed to complement Rebel Bingo.

Rebel Bingo used to be called Underground Rebel Bingo, but I think it’s safe to say that it’s gone overground now. They only do a few a year and it is so popular, the online tickets sell out in minutes. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next one.

Musical Bingo, 20th June

Why did we think a fourth bottle of wine would be a good idea? Whose arm was around me as we danced on stage? Where did my jacket go? These are the kinds of questions you will be asking yourself when you go to the crazy party that is Musical Bingo.

If you’re at all familiar with bingo, you’ll pick up Musical Bingo in no time. You get a card and on it is a grid with nine song titles. When they play your song you cross it off. First prize is one line, second prize is two lines, third prize is three lines and then you carry on until someone gets a full house. Each round also has a different theme. The first one was British music, the second was love (aaaahhh) and so on. 

 This was Musical Bingo’s 5th birthday so we knew they were going to pull out all the stops. There were some pretty decent prizes on offer – the grand prize being tickets to Leefest, but also bottles of wine, and decent bar tabs/free meals for Concrete and Pizza East which were the host venue for the evening. Each round was compered by a hostess. And for the first time ever, all three hostesses were sharing the stage! 

[Poor] Photographic evidence of the landmark occasion

These saucy minxes obviously didn’t have to call out numbers, but kept the party going and, all important, faciliated deciding any tie breakers. You see, if you got a line (or two or three) you raced to the DJ booth to get your card checked. But what if more than one of you reached bingo at the same time? I thought it might be a case of first come first win, picturing cut-throat races to the DJ booth, people tackling other people out of the way. But no. In the case of a tie-break, however many people were claiming victory were ushered onto the stage to compete for the prize. Such contests included a hula hooping competition, a limbo contest, and rock paper scissors. Being the grand exhibitionist that I am after a few glasses of wine, I was mortally disappointed that I didn’t get the chance to try my hand at any of these, as I didn’t win a single game. I think in the whole night I managed to cross off only one measly line (way after the chance to win that had passed). But as you might guess, it didn’t mar my enjoyment.

Lola Hi-Rola

The night was sold out – you have to book a table in advance by email for £7 per person. We were shown to our seats by Johnny and had time to get some drinks in before the bingo started at about 8. At first me and my more competitive teammate found the going a little slow. There was absolutely no chance of someone being too lethargic to miss their song, miss their chance to cross it off and thus boost our chances of winning, as they played each song in full. We were raring to go to hear the next one, in a hurry to be the first to win. But then, after a couple more glasses, that urge wore off and we were enjoying listening to the music. Starting to groove along and dance in our seats even. They were playing some cracking songs – ranging from The Buzzcocks to Stevie Wonder (the Happy Birthday song of course!). Soon, if they cut the song short to move onto the next one, we were disappointed. Slowly but surely, the impending chaos crept in. People started not only dancing in their seats, but standing up to jig about. Then, (no doubt inspired by miss Lola Hi-Rola gallivanting on the benches), others were getting up onto the benches and tables to dance (and swiftly being told to get down by the bouncers). Until, as soon as you’d crossed off your song, or realised you didn’t have it, people were moving to the area at the front to dance between songs. I had my moment in the sun when my friend and I, who need little to no encouragement, were taken by the hand and pulled onto the stage. Now it was all about the dancing – me just hopping off stage to cross off a song before jumping back to continue dancing. It all culminated with circles breaking out and strangers’ arms finding strangers’ waists while we kicked our legs and swung around to Zorba the Greek. And I haven’t even mentioned the conga line – or the gambling your prize for the chance to win . . . who knows! Something amazing, or maybe just a Justin Bieber mask. Utterly exhilarating and fabulous fun – I really can’t wait to go again. They have just started a new night called Last Man Standing and if it's anything like Musical Bingo, it deserves a place on my List.

Bobbing for marshmallows to win the team free shots

Unfortunately there was a bit of a bum note towards the end – while we were gallivanting on the stage either an overzealous bar person, or a sneaky bingo player relieved us of the half a bottle of wine we still had. And I couldn’t find my jacket when we left at the end of the night – if anyone took it by mistake (or even on purpose), can you please return it?