Bungo, Brawling with Cops and Cormac - at last

Last night I was back in Belfast having been absent for a few days and I was very happy to be hanging out with my good lady friend (see girlfriend). We decided to go down to La Boca where Geoff Gatt runs an open mic accoustic night.

We got there late but just in time to hear a few numbers by Accoustic Dan, and the last act (a guy called Cormac - sorry didn't get his last name). Anyways, Cormac played a good set and I was speaking to Geoff about him. Geoff said he used to play around town years ago but that he'd been in Liverpool for the past few years.

For some strange reason something in my head clicked and I thought of a number I had in my phone stored as 'Liverpool'.

Now the reason I have this number is because of a dare's game I invented for the SPART ACTION GROUP called Bungo.

The rules of Bungo are pretty easy and involve:

1 Dice
some paper and pens
a bag
a lot of balls (metaphorical of course -ladies can play too!)

So to start with everyone writes some dares and puts them in the bag (there's no set rules on numbers but enough so that everyone will end up with a few dares).

Now at this point I'll tell you that it was in the rules that you could refuse to do a dare if it was illegal or risky to your health. (If you refused for any other reason you had to do a forefit). Despite this clause we all nearly got arrested for our daring deeds.

Then we begin, everyone roles the dice (I know it's die but, like, fuck off) and the highest number goes first, it then goes clockwise from them.

Role a 1 - Pick a dare out of the bag
Role a 2 - Put a dare back into the bag (if you've no dares then you just pass)
Role a 3 - Pass a dare on to your left
Role a 4 - Pass a dare on to your right
Role a 5 - Select a player to give a dare to
Role a 6 - Miss a go.

The dice rolling stops when the bag is empty. It is at this point that everyone does their dares, taking it in turn to do them.

Two of the dares in the game involved going to someone else's house.

One (which I got), involved going to a random house and trying to sell them something.

the other (which Ben Craig got), involved knocking someone's dorr and running away.

Ben and I of course had balls of steel, so off we went to do our dares.

I picked a random house in the neighbourhood and tried to sell a wee crappy pink plastic dinosaur to the guy who answered.

Ben decided when it came time to do his dare that he would pick the same house. So off we all went to make sure he didn't welsch.

Ben indeed rapt the door very hard (though not hard enough to cause structural damage) and we ran laughing down the drive. Where upon our way out was blocked by a car in the drive.

At this point a group of angry 40 something year olds got out and grabbed us. I fucked some dude on his head and my mate the grid got bounced off a car and my other mate Paul was kneed in the balls by some half-wit who thought we'd murdered her kids (it was still during the throws of the Madeline McCann news story so every parent in the country was on the lookout for murderous paedophiles).

Anyways it all got very nasty and the cops were called. When the cops showed up they couldn't accept that we'd just been playing a party game. (partly because we wouldn't take them back to the house - because there was a six foot wide pentagram drawn on the hallway carpet in sugar - Yum Yum).

Anyways, at the end of all this we got away scott free (which is nice when you haven't committed a crime).

Now the final twist. One of Ben's dares was also to send a random text from my phone to someone on his friends list. So he did. This person he said didn't live in Belfast but in Liverpool and standing there before me in La Boca last night might possibly have been the mystery number.

I called it, it was. We had a brief but pleasant chat and he took the whole dares game in the jovial mood it had been intended. Then he left. A nicer, happier ending to the single game of Bungo ever played, than the reckless street brawl that had spoiled my memories of what was supposed to be a happy occasion.