Eyes Down!

During the intervals at my local Mecca Bingo I enjoy playing the Cashline boards on the table, it's so addictive and easy to just sit there and put another pound in!

From my many trips to bingo I have noticed that during these Cashline games players forget or miss a number and then do not claim their win. The caller will shout out letting players know that someone has won but they need to press their claim button. I've always wondered how players do this, surely you're concentrating and keeping on top of which numbers have been called! Unfortunately on Sunday night I fell into this category and now I understand, and sympathise with those players that it happens to!

With only £1 left I decided to use it on one of the BOGOF games. The game began and it wasn't a good start, I had the dreaded Red 20 for one and a group of women near us were chatting really loudly making it difficult to concentrate. After a short while my numbers were flying in, with only 2TG my heart was racing, then with the last number to go the caller stops everyone. He was waiting for someone to press the claim button, I still had one to go  and was secretly hoping that this 'player' would forget to claim. He gave everyone one last chance before moving on and I decided to hit my claim button. Next thing I new my card appeared on the screen along with my board number, to which my mum then turns to me, looks at my last number and says '67 was the first number to come out!'. I'd won £100 without even realising and here's me disapproving of players who don't pay attention to the numbers, hypocrite, yes I think so and I'd like to apologise to everyone I quietly tutted at when this happened!

In other good news I did go on to then win a full house on the final book game netting myself £1000 in cash!

Another Sunday, another fabulous night at bingo with friends and family!

Update: Card A with the dreaded Red 20 is the one I won on so it's gone up in my estimations ;)

Friends, Laughs, Jokes and Josh!

I've been a bit behind on my blogging recently due to me going away on holiday, there was no local Mecca and no wi-fi so couldn't even play online!

I made up for it this week though and started off by attending Sunday's 'Grand Night Out' again where each house was a £1000. Much to his dismay I dragged the other half along, he had no excuse this time as football had now finished and I wanted to double my chances of winning, what's his is mine, right? ;)

To be honest the night didn't start too well, he got the board with Red 20 and we took the mickey yet again of his dabbing technique. My mum on the other hand had a rather 'grand' night out, with only 3 numbers to go for the full house she was a nervous wreck. All she needed was number 13, 13 was called and she should have been shouting for joy but no, she was too busy dabbing off number 13 instead of screaming "Bingoooo". A couple of quick nudges from me and my brother and she finally called, very nearly missing it though! I might not have won anything but I'm always happy that someone from our group wins. :)

Recently I've been telling everyone I know about bingo and I get the usual remarks, "Oh that's for old folk", "How boring", until I go on to tell them just what I've won from attending. Tonight we convinced two more of our friends to join us (I think I should get commission for each new member) and we had a whale of a time! They were nervous at first as they were not sure what to do but once they got into it they were wanting to play more, shouting the guy over for more pound coins!

Ah, the staff member who's job it is to go round making sure everyone has change. To be honest they usually don't say much but tonight I have to give a very special mention to Josh from Mecca Bingo Blackpool. I've never laughed so much, he made our friends feel welcome, told us some jokes and had a banter with us for the rest of the night which made the whole experience even more enjoyable!

P.S I had Red 20 tonight....still no luck :(

Everyone's A Winner!

When I'm not at my local bingo club you can usually find me online, gaming, working or of course playing bingo!

Online bingo is great, addictive yes, but without a doubt it's fun and entertaining. Being able to sit in the comfort of your own house, with a cup of tea, glass of wine or whatever your choice of refreshment may be is just awesome. Not only that but you also get to be part of a fantastic community with some lovely people who are all waiting for the same thing...1TG! :)

At the end of last month I received an email from Mecca informing me of their latest promotion. The promotion was called 'Everyone's A Winner', it was simple, all I needed to do was play bingo (well I was already doing that), spend £1 in one day and then claim your free gift. The gifts ranged from 50p vouchers, Alton Tower tickets right up to an iPad 2!

I claimed a free gift over 9 days and my prizes over those days included four 50p vouchers and five £1 vouchers. I thought these were great, you can't complain at being giving free bonus funds no matter what the value. This leads me to day 10, the 7th February; I had around £10 left in my account and played a couple of games throughout the day, forgetting at lunch to check my free gift. It was only after my tea when my Mum reminded me to claim my free gift, I logged on and hit the 'Claim' button. I walked away letting it load and when I came back I had to do a double take, for there on my screen as clear as day it said the words 'Congratulations you have won an Apple iPad 2 16GB'...I think about moments like this, about what I would do if I ever won something as large as this, I always thought I would keep calm and sneakily tell my family to see if they believed me or not. Unfortunately all those thoughts went out the window; I simply screamed and ran around the house doing a silly dance!

I just want to say a big thank you to Mecca Bingo for running this promotion and good luck to everyone else! You might think you're never going to win but keep at it as you'll be surprised! :D

Don't you just hate it when there's a full house?!

Sunday night has to be the most popular night for bingo, well I think so anyway. This theory is backed up by the fact that the car park is swamped and it's just downright terrible to get a parking space! I don't want people to think I'm moaning purely because the car park is full, of course I should get there earlier, but my main cause of frustration has to be how people park.

When learning to drive you're taught some pretty complicated stuff, just getting the car to go takes a lot of practice before it's spot on, but to me the easiest piece of information everyone should know is that you park your car inbetween the two white lines!! To me this is common sense yet to some bingo heads it appears that this is not the case. Only this past Sunday did I drive around looking for a space to find five that I could of used only for the car next to it to be over the line, taking up two spaces! Every week without fail there's about five or six cars all doing the same thing, I'm still trying to get my head round why they do this or if they should even be allowed on the road? They can easily enough dab off multiple numbers at a rapid rate yet seem to have difficulty parking between the lines!

In other 'bingo' related news I've played a lot this week. Me and my bingo buddies attended Mecca bingo's 'Grand Night Out' where all 11 houses were for £1000, unfortunately I didn't walk away with any but all good fun and happening again this Sunday! This week I also tried out some online bingo on Mecca and William Hill. From playing the both of them, even though I do love my Mecca club, I did prefer William Hill's, however this might have been due to the fact that I won, not much, but just enough to keep you going. :)

How's my hate for Red 20 going? Well, I ended up sitting at a table which had Red 20 and I thought I was in luck as I find it's the number that comes up the most, especially when I don't have it! Aha but I had it this time, my luck was in, it wouldn't let me down, would it??

P.S I hate Red 20!!! :(

Britain's Got Talent

Mecca Bingo recently posted a competition on their Facebook page to win a pair of tickets to be in the audience for the Britain's Got Talent auditions and to my surprise I won!!

When arriving in the town centre I was taken aback at just how many people were there, the queues to get in were enormous, it was raining and I hadn't yet picked up my ticket (not a great start). After finding one of the BGT's staff I was given my tickets along with my wristband - it looked like I wasn't going to have to join the general public queue after all as we were considered 'sponsorship guests'!

We got taken into the theatre, making our way through the centre of the crowd with everyone looking at us. I totally felt like a VIP then! The seats we had were brilliant as we were sat in the stalls and had a brilliant view of the stage and judges desk. The show finally began with Ant & Dec coming on to the stage to introduce the judges and to our surprise they came down our aisle meaning we were within inches of David Walliams, Alesha Dixon and the Simon Cowell.

Overall the auditions were fab, from pole dancers and singers right through to dodgy magicians and poetry reading! It's a night I won't forget and was very interesting to see what goes on during the breaks between each act. When you watch it on TV you don't realise how long it can take between acts or just how long the judges can ramble on for - it's all very clever editing!

I laughed, cheered, danced and cringed. What more could you ask for?! A big thanks again to Mecca Bingo for running the competition! :)

'Scribblers'

This week, believe it or not, I managed to drag my other half with me, much to his dismay! I got the impression that he won't be coming again, not that I would be too bothered. To be honest his dabbing technique was frustrating me, I don't even think his dabber touched the paper, it sort of brushed past leaving a tiny lil mark on the number! I like full on blob of ink completely drowning the number as I find it a lot easier to see where I am...maybe I need glasses?!!

The above 'mini rant' brings me nicely on to the subject of Scribblers, well that's what I call them anyway! For those wondering, a Scribbler is someone who uses a felt tip pen to 'colour' in each number. Now, picture the scene, the bingo caller begins with the first number being called, a quiet hush descends across the room with no one making a sound for fear of being scorned by others (it happens), when what do you hear but the 'scribble' of the felt tip pen next to you!

For at least 48 calls you have to listen to the 'scribble' and when a room is that quiet it sounds like the loudest thing ever! It happened to me tonight, the woman next to us 'scribbling' away which resulted in me getting the giggles and my Mother getting angrier by the minute, for the only way I can describe the noise during that time is like Chinese torture, a dripping tap that you cannot stop! Maybe I'm just being petty or maybe I should just join the felt tip crew and be done with it. What's the saying, if you can't beat them, join them!

So, what's your pet peeve during bingo?

P.S. Red 20 is still in my bad books!

Fellow Bingo Head!

I've been a member of Mecca Bingo now for a few months and I've already gotten to know the 'quirky' ways of hardcore bingo heads, heck, I've even started to do some of them myself!

I decided to start this blog to document my time at the bingo hall, my wins, my losses, the laughs I have and hopefully connect with fellow bingo fans.

Sunday's are my preferred day to cross those lucky numbers off, armed with my bingo bag which contains two dabbers (trust me, running out mid game is disastrous), membership card, voucher offers and usually a handful of pound coins. I'm not yet superstitious and find sitting pretty much anywhere in the hall neither gives you more or less luck, or at least I like to tell myself that. Maybe there is a winning seat or lucky board, if anyone knows I'm all ears!

Without wanting to ramble too much about the mundane contents of my bag or what I snack on during intervals, I will say this - bingo can be rewarding, big time! Only last Sunday did I play the link game where I walked away with over £2000 in cash, not bad for a bingo beginner. :)

I'll leave this first post with the one thing I definitely have come to notice from my time at bingo and that is I really do hate the number Red 20!