You may have spotted a pretty minor news article t’other day about a local councillor in Sudbury, Suffolk who’s been banned from using some of the saucier bingo calls at local council bingo nights. His bosses thought that sayings like ‘two fat ladies’ for 88 or ‘legs eleven’ for 11 could be taken as offensive, leading to complaints, and as a pre-emptive measure asked him to stop using them, to which he agreed.
You would be forgiven for thinking this minor and frankly forgettable incident set the seeds for the destruction of the heritage of the game and ushered in its untimely demise, reading the news blurts and campaigns that have sprung up from this story. The major press has run with the story, frothing at the mouth that the political correctness will be the end of us all.
It seems some opportunistic webmaster of another bingo site has decided to blow this story up beyond all proportions. Extrapolating from the Sudbury story, they released an op-ed Press Release stating ‘that it’s only a matter of time before EU killjoys set their sights on bingo hall banter’, forming a frankly nonsense group to protect our Bingo Lingo. This is all based on ‘industry rumours’ rather than any solid information, but it’s not stopped the xenophobic gutter press getting all ‘old blighty’ about it.
Ok, let’s put this in perspective, to save the nonsense going around about it. Firstly, the original case was more likely the result of an overzealous council worker trying to do what they perceived as the right thing. It effects one tiny, weekly game at a local council.
Secondly, there is no evidence that the EU or any other bureaucrats want to ban bingo phrases. What’s more, if they ever did, it would not effect the vast majority of UK bingo players as they play at halls where the old fashioned calls haven’t been used for decades, due to their slowing down of the game.
Thirdly, bingo is popular in Europe too, and although they don’t use the same calls of us, the thought that Eurocrats would want to pass legislation on something as minor as bingo calls is frankly idiotic and moronic.
Finally, and bingo players signing the petitions and joining groups are doing so because they’ve been fed this BS and don’t realise how they are being manipulated, with an aim to simply gaining a single bingo affiliate website lots of juicy links. It’s all the more ironic and insulting as the person who’s spearheading this campaign to protect ‘British Bingo Lingo’ doesn’t actually live in the UK but in Europe and doesn’t actually play bingo. So please folks, let’s knock this one on the head right now, it’s silly and demeaning.
