When I was a kid, people thought I was psychic. No, really, they did.
And at my community hall, we used to play bingo. Because of my incredible, psychic abilities people would sit beside me to have better luck. I had an ability to guess which number would come up before it was called. I have no video evidence of this, but I assure you, as a nine-year-old, I definitely rocked in the psychic stakes.
This has not continued on into my later years. But, regardless, I still have a soft spot for a bit of bingo.
During a recent wacky, Monkey Shoulder Social Club event, I discovered an even greater excitement for Rebel Bingo – an all out, crazy, music-blaring, swear-word calling, bingo extravaganza. I barely predicted any numbers but I blame that on the whisky.
Instead, I just dotted out my numbers, listened with glee and enjoyed the chaos and quirkiness that was another eccentric Monkey Shoulder event.
This year, the Monkey has been responsible for some all-out, bonkers nights, such as the time their creative team tried to re-build New York inside a warehouse as part of its For One Night Only series, created an adults-only Easter egg hunt in Soho, and helped get me back in the whisky-drinking game post Christmas for their January Retox.
But this latest event took the top stakes in this year’s crazy Monkey competition.
On the night, my friend Miss Lucy (a recent convert to whisky) and I hustled through the freezing Dalston streets and down a back alley to be greeted by hot-toddy distributing, brown bathrobe wearing Monkey Shoulder crewmates.
Inside the giant warehouse, music was blaring and hoards of terribly trendy Dalstonites (/Brixtonites/Hoxtonites) milled about with cocktails and swagger.
There were two bars – one serving more complicated mixes in smaller doses (think: a Monkey Jam Sour and Malt Jockey) while the other gave away simpler cocktails quicker than a monkey can find itself out of its cage and wandering about a Canadian Ikea.
Miss Lucy and I grabbed a couple of ginger brewskies (Monkey Shoulder, ginger, lemon and Innis & Gunn beer) and a hot pulled pork sandwich and headed upstairs to watch some of the Big Lebowski, which was screening in a brick-walled, couch laden room with bags of popcorn strewn on the table.
Many more cocktails followed and by the time Rebel Bingo got going, we were in the mood to dance funky like a crazy monkey. This may have been why I didn’t win – I was too focused on the chaos around me.
After a few games of retro Pacman, an arm wrestling fight with a arm-wrestling machine (who knew these existed?) and far too many cocktails, we stumbled back out into the freezing December air feeling fully Monkey-fied.
I can’t wait to see what they come up with next year!
For more information on the Monkey Shoulder Social Club, visit: www.facebook.com/monkeyshoulder and follow the team on Twitter @MnkyShldrUK.
Photo Credit: Monkey Shoulder
