It’s a little-known fact that our first ever article wasn’t about built heritage, a big fire or Best Kebab. No, it was all about Glasgow’s love for bingo. ‘Bingo is in decline but Glaswegians remain marking their card’, read Ophira Gottlieb’s piece, sent to a mere 1,061 subscribers. These days, each email goes out to more than 27,000 (we’d love to hit the big, round 30,000, but there’s time for that yet).
It’s a quality wee piece, with quippy lines like: “Before writing this article, my bingo experience was meagre to say the least. That’s not to say I’d never binged, but my bunging was seldom and sporadic”. And my personal favourite: “[A]t Bongo’s Bingo, you can put on a pair of novelty silicone tits and drink Venoms while asserting that you’re continuing a time-honoured tradition”.
Our early days at The Bell were exhilarating, if a little daunting at times. We had a few detractors, but plenty more boosters backing our mission to revitalise journalism in the city.
And even though it’s the supportive messages and well-wishers that stick out most in the mind, there was one notable negative nancy social media post that stayed with us: The Bell bingo card.
For those not in the know, the bingo lingo was all about the apparently predictable nature of our journalism. The least scathing of them all was the tile with the text “newspaper closure by 2026.”
Feeling sentimental this week, we decided to dust it off and look at it with fresh eyes. “I FORGOT ABOUT THE BINGO CARD!” went one response. “EXCELLENT.”
More importantly, did we actually publish any of the stories they predicted we would? Let’s assess.
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