Original photo courtesy Philip Greenspun
Welcome to Sheep Bingo
At Well House Consultants, we provide Open Source training on programming in Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Lua, Tcl, C/C++, and more. Our course notes are well provided with examples, and we often use the domain www.sheepbingo.co.uk as an illustration .... I guess you've been reading our notes, and have come here in a moment of idle curiosity?

Why "Sheep Bingo"?
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Why not ;-)

It's a long story ... that started with a field of sheep with numbers painted on their backs. We thought of smoky bingo halls, we thought of the great outdoors and we said to ourselves ... what a wonderful alternative ... SHEEP BINGO.

Sheep Bingo is played in high summer, when the sun is shining and the birds are singing in the trees. Family groups come, spead rugs on the grass and picnic. One part of the field is fenced off, and sheep quietly graze. A lady in cricket whites hands around cards, printed with numbers from 1 to 90. Can you feel the anicipation? A gent switches on the microphone, then rapidly turns it off again as a shrill squeal comes from the speakers. He adjusts it and tries again. And the gate of the sheep pen is opened.

As each sheep wander through the gate, our earstwhile gent calls out the number on its back. Everyone looks at their card, eagerly hoping to match the number. The odd yelp of delight greets a match, and a cry of anguish when a sheep, dearly wanted to complete a line, puts its head around the gate and retreats back to the inner area. A gentle game for a long, sunny evening; you hear the murmur of talk, the chink of wine glasses and the occasional number being called out; as the sun sets, the game isn't over and a draw is declared. After all, it's the taking part that's important and not the winning.



Page written (in a moment of some whimsy) by Graham Ellis, Copyright 2024