This has got to be my favourite newspaper headline of all time!
Sadly, the story it refers to is not as exciting as it may sound. I can safely report that the people of Leeds are not running around the streets crazed after playing a game of bingo with ferrets.
FERRET BINGO
Basically a teacher at a Leeds school made a box with 8 pipes coming out of it, each numbered 1 to 8. He then drops a ferret in the top and the kids had to guess which numbered pipe the ferret will run out of first.
It sounds like hours of family fun, and yet I felt disappointed by the lack of ambition. Just 8 ball bingo! Why not create a huge ferret box, with an amazingly complex set of 90 pipes leading in all directions? Then throw in 90 ferrets and play a proper game of bingo!
Once each ferret leaves a pipe, a little door closes and stops another from calling the same number. You can tell I’ve thought about this in way too much detail. LOL
At the end of their shifts, the VCMs email their list of winners to me and I usually credit them the next day. The chat games are there for a bit of added fun, plus there is the chance to win some extra FB£s to top up your accounts.
TOTAL FB£s WON IN A WEEK
I was unfortunate to be away from the office all week with a nasty virus, and thinking I would be OK rather quickly, I didn’t delegate the duty of crediting chat games to anyone else. I therefore got back to the office this morning with a whole week’s worth of chat game winners to credit!
It was a mammoth task, but it allowed me to see the total number of chat game winners in a week. In total we had just over 300 different winners who collectively raked in FB£5,689 in winnings!
Well done to you winners!
It took me ages to credit those 300 winners, so next time I think I’ll get CM Juan to do them if I’m ever off sick again! LOL.
Well would you look at the date, it’s been almost a month since my last blog post, which is like a lifetime in the blogging world. The blog was down for a little while, but we’ve fixed the problem and it is now officially back up and running!
I’ve been so busy and there is so much to talk about, I don’t know where to begin!
I guess the biggest news on FreeBingo is the launch of our pop-tastic Musical Bingo Room.
It was hard work, but great fun, thinking up a whole new set of 90 bingo calls. Our VCMs were great help in this and I hope you agree the finished result is quite amusing!
To add to the fun, the musical bingo calls were voiced by our celebrity impressionist so that ‘Elvis Presley’, ‘Frank Sinatra’, ‘Tom Jones’ and Harry Enfield’s DJs ‘Smashy & Nicey‘ are the bingo callers in the room!
It has been great experimenting with new callers, but don’t worry, we won’t be getting rid of Eric! In fact, Eric was the caller in this month’s the tennis-themed Wimbledon Bingo Room.
I thought this year’s Wimbledon was really good, especially with Andy Murray stepping up to fill Tim Henman’s ’so-close-better-luck-next-year’ shoes. The final between Federer and Nadal was pretty amazing too!
As well as these two rooms, there have been loads going on behind the scenes, such as my trip ‘down south’ to the 3rd Annual Online Bingo Summit. But I will save that blog for later.
The launch of the 9th series of reality TV show, Big Brother, seemed like the perfect opportunity to experiment with a resized format to our free bingo games. Therefore we created the ‘BIGGER BINGO ROOM FOR BIG BROTHER FANS’…
Otherwise known as the DIARY ROOM!
The new room is much larger than our standard bingo rooms, which leaves a larger chat space and also room to bring back the GL, BRB, TYVM, WD and LOL buttons that are the mainstay of most online bingo sites.
Our research shows that over 90% of our players should have no problems viewing this new game size, but if you cannot see the whole of the room, simply press the HELP button, and you will be taken to our FAQ guide which explains how to re-size your screen resolution so you can view the whole room.
DEREK THE CALLER
In another first for Free Bingo, we ’ve brought in a brand new caller to do the calls! Love him or hate him, Derek (big brother of Eric) has certainly become a talking point with his hilarious take on the voice-over guy from Big Brother.
Players are particularly enjoying making false claims, just to hear him say “SORRY… YOU DON’T HAVE BINGOOOO…” LOL!
If you’ve yet to hear Derek’s dulcet tones, come on over and log-in. Don’t laugh too hard! PMSL.
I would just like to congratulate Lianne, aka VCM Babygirl8t2, on running the ‘RACE FOR LIFE’ this weekend in support of Cancer Research UK.
She finished the race in an impressive 50 minutes and raised a total of £330!! Impressive!
She did do the run in one of our lucky FreeBingo T-Shirts…
…However, it was so cold on the day that she had it hidden under her coat! LOL.
I know there are lots of FreeBingo players who are also taking part in Race For Life events this year. I wish you all the very best and hope you raise loads of dosh!
On Sunday I took a much deserved step away from the computer and headed over to the seaside town of Bridlington on a ‘double-date’ sort of thing with my fiance and our two friends who have recently ‘hooked up’.
The weather was true British seaside form - gorgeous sunshine with gale force winds!
Numerous 2ps coins were wasted in the Penny Arcades and we had the obligatory fish & chips followed by ice-creams.
It all reminded me very much of last year’s Summer Holiday Bingo Room. I wonder where Eric will take us on holiday this summer?
Ever been bored with hearing the same old Eric calling the numbers in our free bingo rooms?
Well be prepared for a refreshing change!
Next month we are going to start experimenting with ‘guest bingo callers’ in some of our upcoming themed rooms. We’ve hooked up with a very talented voice artist who can provide a wide variety of styles, accents and impersonations.
There will be at least two new rooms in June that will feature two different guest callers - but more on that later.
If you could have any famous voice doing the free bingo calls who would you choose?
In the run-up to the Monthly Prize Draw at FreeBingo, I am usually quite busy, but this month there has been so much going on I am surprised we managed to fit everything in!
I’m still very busy, so much in fact that I am simply going to list the new things in bullet form (so I can run for the bus). LOL.
This week I received a FreeBingo-inspired poem sent in by dreggy:
“There was a little bingo hall FreeBingo was its name.
Where newbies all went to complain about the winners being the same.
So the hall installed the VCMs to keep them all in line,
To explain the rules, play some games and put a stop to the whine.
Soon they put in a new bar and let us all get merry,
While sharing banter and daubing cards over a glass of sherry.
They eventually gave us neat prizes like betty daubers or a brolly,
Which we could win for answering things and in general being jolly.
Now this little old bingo hall is filled up daily to the rafters.
It still gets the occasional whiners but is filled up much more with laughter.
The bar is constantly full and the winos in there are now made up of winners.
Cant wait till we get sat TV and they start serving up hot dinners.
I love this little bingo hall and love the winning too,
But most of all I love the VCMs and the rest of you readers too .
Now go away and please take note,
If you love us too then make that vote!”
It got me thinking, perhaps we should put a poetry page on FreeBingo and see if any other bingo players out there fancy sending one in?
If you think you could write a freebingo poem, send it to editorial@freebingo.co.uk. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!
Well would you believe it, FreeBingo.co.uk was once again nominated for a top award at the 2008 Yorkshire Digital Awards.
Last night, the whole FreeBingo team put on our best penguin suits and headed off to the Savile Hall in Leeds for a rather posh dinner / awards / disco event.
The Savile Hall was quite a nice place, but even Sir Jimmy couldn’t fix it for us to win the ‘Best Entertainment Site’ category. CM Juan (pictured) didn’t even know who Jimmy Savile was!
Just like last year, we were absolutely thrilled to be shortlisted but a free bingo site really didn’t stand much chance against the eventual winner: www.channel4.com/od.
We didn’t think it was very fair to put us up against a giant like Channel 4, but what can you do? I didn’t even expect us to make the shortlist, so when the FreeBingo homepage appeared on the giant screen I almost fell off my chair!
Once the awards were all handed out the company next to us made their way home, generously leaving us as the proud new owners of a free bucket of beers! FreeBingo and free beers, what more do you need in life? LOL.
I would just like to congratulate Lianne, aka 
Well would you believe it, 
