They’re everywhere. You’ve seen them in sports bars, dorms, frat houses and sororities, schools, senior centers, community centers, play rooms, and what feels like a hundred thousand other places. You’ve seen them on TV shows as life-and-death serious as “House” and as silly as “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” Foosball tables are everywhere and the game remains more deeply embedded in American culture than soccer, the sport that inspired it. (Sure, we know David Beckham is playing in Los Angeles these days, but soccer is still marginal as a spectator sport in the States.)

Table Football, as it is known outside the U.S., was first invented by one Harold Searles Thornton. An Englishman and, naturally, a serious devotee of the game the rest of the world insists on calling “football,” Mr. Thornton wanted to come up with a reasonable way to replicate his favorite pastime at home. Thorton had an uncle living in Oregon and so the game ended up being patented both in the U.S. and the U.K. Read the rest of this entry »

With the winter nights drawing ever closer and the clocks going back this weekend, it’ll soon be extremely dark early on in the evening in Britain.

Rather than wrapping up warm and getting out and about, you could be snuggled up on the sofa with a nice cup of tea in the comfort of your own home.

If that sounds appealing and you’re a big fan of games, you might want to put some money into your own bingo set.

It’s a fairly simple bit of kit, but it’ll be extremely popular in your home, with both adults and children keen to get in on the action.

There are obviously various different bingo kits on offer, all of which have very different price tags, so it depends how much you’re willing to spend to have bingo in your home.

You’ll need to have plenty of scorecards and markers to hand to make sure whoever gets a ‘full house’ can see which numbers they’ve marked down.

Someone will have to play caller to make the game really work – you might just want to get one of your friends or family to volunteer to do the role, or you could all take it in turns throughout the night if you think that’s fairer.

Whichever way you decide to play it, you’re sure to have plenty of fun on a lazy Saturday evening when you’re a bit too chilly to leave The X Factor on record and want to stay in and entertain yourselves.

Invite your friends over and why not make up your very own bingo calls? You’re bound to have a barrel of laughs if you all get as involved as one another!

This article was written by Alex, a keen blogger and online bingo fanatic. She loves to play bingo at tasty and can often be found writing about her latest wins on the net!

With so much of our lives spent in towns and cities – for work, shopping and relaxation – it can take us further away from nature.
But when we need to take a pause, think, and simply breathe, there are few better ways of unwinding than going camping.

Photo: brixton

Just because you decide to eschew hotels and four-poster beds in favour of a simpler holiday, though, doesn’t mean you can’t be comfortable. Read the rest of this entry »

Playing bingo at home with a bingo machine, bought on ebay or in a store, is great fun.

Bingo has been popular for centuries, for a number of reasons.

Photo: Scott Ableman

It’s always exciting thinking about what number will come out next, particularly when you only need one or two to win the game. Read the rest of this entry »