The debauched bingo party that has taken over the world is coming to your town 15th February.

It will be ridiculous.

The Underground Rebel Bingo Club from Rebel Bingo on Vimeo.

Rock, pop, hip-hop, dubstep, party tunes, and Underground Rebel Bingo.

“It’s a raucous night of drinking, swearing, dancing and of course rebel bingo. It was started by two guys in a basement and is now an underground phenomenon” Readplatform.com

We are a tight knit unit of hardcore bingo players constantly on the move to avoid the old school bingo mafia. We dot around the globe causing havoc and getting ourselves in trouble. If you don’t know who we are, it’s because nobody told you.

Our nights consist of DJs, dancing, drinking and loud games of Rebel Bingo. It is like nothing you have ever seen before. We have invented a new mutant form of bingo.

In each town we involve local talent, DJs and promoters to get involved in what is now a global club.

The rules of THE UNDERGROUND REBEL BINGO CLUB are simple.

No Boring People

No Old People

No Wankers

If you don’t like loud music, shouting and dancing don’t come.

The Underground Rebel Bingo Club

rebels@rebelbingo.com

www.rebelbingo.com

cardifflife.net now has its very own shop. You can now buy your Cardiff guides, maps and other books from cardifflife.net and music from a host of Welsh bands. All powered by Amazon (which means it’s secure, trusted and it’ll work!).

The shop will evolve to include much more from Wales but if you have any comments please send them our way! We’re always trying to make cardifflife.net a little better.

Time was when Indian restaurants were all chintzy decoration, gaudy baubles and tigers. No more; many have gone for a more sedate ambience, with minimalistic décor fitting menus that are less chicken tikka masala and more Tharav Sofyani.

The Cinnamon Tree in Cardiff’s Pontcanna area fits nicely into this latter bracket. Its demure presentation certainly goes well with its tasteful menu of modern subcontinental dishes. The staff are always friendly, and always as immaculately turned out as their Mercedes cars outside. They’re doing well, it seems, and on tonight’s experience, that’s no surprise.

My partner goes for the Chicken Chat – chicken pieces in a thick, spicy sauce – while I plump for the King Prawn Malabari. Both dishes are beautifully presented and the succulent king prawns in their crispy breadcrumb jackets are just the ticket with the warming chutney dip. Oh, and a glass of Cobra. Well; it’d be rude not to.

For mains it is quite a healthy affair. My partner’s Calcutta turkey steak comes with spicy mushroom bhuna, salad and absolutely lovely spicy Bengali potato wedges. Crispy, salty, creamy potatoes go wonderfully with the turkey. I have a Goan sea bass fillet, cooked in spiced coconut milk, served on a bed of crushed potatoes with caramelised onions, roasted mustard seeds and coriander. Wow, it’s a party in my mouth and no-one’s vomiting. It’s pretty hot, a medium apparently, but luckily I can still taste everything. Beautifully-cooked fish and a delicious coconut and spice combination.

I am very grateful for the mash when I take a small bite from the roasted chilli atop the ensemble; I can’t help myself, and my tongue suffers. Luckily it recovers quickly and I can continue to appreciate my fish. The very palatable house white wine is a decent accompaniment to our dishes.

The Cinnamon Tree is firmly on my list of potential venues when guests come to stay.

The main-stage will feature a delightfully eclectic line up of laptop pop, folktronica, chillwave, burnt-out indie pop, Broadway-style indie-folk, psychedelic folk rock, avant garde noiseniks & doom rock. The second Café stage will feature solo & acoustic artists, as well as open mic slots (with a small donation) for any local musicians who’d like to perform throughout the day.

Artists playing: Albatross Archive, Anthony Reynolds & Charlotte Greig, BAANEEX, Ceri Frost, Derrero, Elephant & Soldier, Ellie Makes Music, Golden Fable, HEHFU, Howl Griff, Inconsiderate Parking, Jewellers, Joe Coleman, Kai Lena, Laurence Made Me Cry, Meilir, Molly Zacharias, Mother of Six, Nia Roberts, No Thee No Ess, Pulco, The Scene, The Smiles & Frowns (Adam Mattson Solo Set)

Doors = Midday – 11pm (last band).

Twitter: @SwigenFestival
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SwigenFestival

I’m confused. Advertised as a Lebanese restaurant, this interestingly-decorated place on Cardiff’s own curry mile has a menu (seemingly bound inside a couple of sheets of laminate flooring) that kicks off with some blurb about Damascus, which last time I looked, was in Syria. That confusion carries on.

Our friendly waiter speaks little English and delivers the wrong starters, but that swiftly gets sorted out and we get the right ones – small pastry parcels, some filled with lamb and some with cheese and herbs. Very nice – they’d make a good breakfast, reckons my dining partner.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Clonk! Rhythmic thumping emanates from the back room. Are they breaking down a whole sheep? Who can tell? But this soundtrack continues for the whole meal. as does the loud graunching whirr of the smoothie machine. No matter though – the drinks being produced are top. Iced smoothies in a multitude of flavours. The pineapple one was great, but the mint and lemon one was bloody lovely (“Tastes like shower gel” reckons my partner). There’s no booze here, and with a few tables populated by local Muslims, it’s not hard to see why. I get the impression it’s a restaurant that’s more regular eating-place for a particular demographic than a gastronomic destination.

Snappy delivery of our main courses brings a mound of rice, peas and lamb with a cucumber yoghurt accompaniment, and a massive plate of lamb ribs and chips. I would tell you the names, but the restaurant’s website is down at the moment. Suffice to say, both were very good, and very cheap. My chips are more French fries, which is slightly disappointing, but the ribs are up my street: well-cooked, tasty and with that barbecue style of crisp, burned bits.

The confusion returns: there’s salt in the pepper cruet, and vice versa.

Again served with amazing alactrity, the puddings are… well, odd. I have the Can Zaman special ice cream. Thick, gelatinous ice cream rolls covered with pistachios and other nuts. It’s good stuff, this. The texture is somewhere in the middle of ice cream, gelato, sorbet and sticky toffee. My partner plumps for a plate of small dough ball-type things, covered in honey. They have the texture of crumpets, deep fried. On top of the main course, it proves a struggle. Nice, but strange, I think.

So, three courses inside an hour, all tasty and with interesting elements. Can Zaman feels authentic, for all its try-hard decoration. It’s an absolute bargain for a speedy meal out, and that makes it a hearty recommendation for me. In spite of the cruet mix-up.

The cream of local taste makers will be curating stages:

Oxjam Cardiff Manager, Gemma White has been volunteering with the festival since 2007 and has seen the event go from strength to strength. “Oxjam has grown massively in Cardiff over the past few years, thanks to the support of local venues, businesses and of course all of the amazing musicians who get involved and play for free. We’re really pleased with our Takeover stage curators this year – Nation Radio and Spillers Records are two very welcome additions and it’s great that Associated Minds and Starving Artists are still involved. They’ve been with us since the start! Last year, there was an eclectic mix of local music and a real community spirit on Womanby Street. We hope to re-create that this year and raise even more money for Oxfam, and beat our £2800 figure that we raised last year.”

Over the past few months the Oxjam Cardiff volunteer team have been jamming round Cardiff trying to raise awareness and funds to put on this mainstay of the local festival calendar. Fundraising events have included a launch party, live music quiz, a mega raffle, a “buskathon” and also a Battle of the Bands competition which raised over £1000 for Oxfam and has offered local unsigned band, Palomino Party, the chance to open the Nation Radio stage at the Takeover festival.

Oxjam Cardiff have also been sourcing prizes for one big MEGA RAFFLE that will run until Monday 3rd October (the day after the Takeover). They’ve managed to source some A-MAZING raffle prizes this year.  Raffle tickets cost £2 each and can be bought at the Oxjam Cardiff Takeover event and also on-line. Just donate £2 at justgiving.com/OxjamCardiffTakeoverr and send an email to oxjamcardiffraffle@googlemail.com with your contact details. (The raffle will be drawn on Monday 3rd October. You must be 16+ to purchase a raffle ticket)

Prizes include:

Signed Bass Guitar (prop) used in the last 4 ‘The Blackout‘ videos
Matt Blease print
2 x tickets to see Russell Howard at The Motorpoint Arena – 13th December 2011
2 x tickets to SWN Festival 2011
2 x tickets to see Alter Bridge at The Motorpoint Arena – 23rd November 2011
2 x Cardiff Blues tickets to a home game of your choice
£50 voucher for Cardiff International White Water rafting centre
£25 gift voucher for St. David’s Hall
2 x tickets to Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard at Globe Cardiff
Tickets to Cardiff Castle (including tour)
The Last Republic Air Guitar T-shirt (this will blow your mind!)
TaskForce Paintballing voucher
Milgi Food Voucher
Miss Patisserie Organic Bath Bomb set
Barely Regal Records goodie bag
Oxjam Cardiff goodie bag

More details including timings for the Oxjam Cardiff Takeover will be announced in the coming 12 days, so keep your eyes peeled on www.oxjamcardiff.com and our various social networking profiles:

- facebook.com/OxjamCardiffTakeover
- twitter.com/oxjam_cardiff

Oxjam Cardiff Takeover tickets are priced £6 advance from www.wegottickets.com

Want nice-sized portions of well-cooked eastern Mediterranean nosh for sensible prices? You couldn’t do much better than Seren on Cardiff’s Cowbridge Road.

I’ve been here before, when it operated as Bosphorus, but as Seren it’s retained its Turkish slant, and I was drawn by its meat-heavy but exotic menu, with lots of spices, yoghurt and tomatoes appearing in the dishes. Forgoing starters, we were nevertheless presented with a couple of dainty courgette and cheese fried patties with cucumber, tomato and yoghurt as an appetiser.

Given the Turkish slant to Seren, we thought it was important to choose Turkish booze to go alongside the food. I don’t remember the names, but the house red and white wines both come from Turkey and are worth investigating. The white is a fresh, light number with a really appealing but unusual tang of olives alongside a citrus flavour, while the red was woody and spicy with a cherry and blackberry fruitiness. I also had a glass of Turkish lager which, while nothing special, was perfectly fine.

I deliberated over the delicious-looking seafood and grill dishes (marinated, whole, char-grilled sea bass, for example, or pieces of monkfish tail steamed with Seren special pear and honey sauce and flavoured with brandy) before plumping for one of the main dishes: Iskender: cubes of lamb on bread smothered with tomato sauce, drizzled with butter and served with yoghurt. My partner had the Karniyarik: aubergine filled with minced lamb, onion, pepper, tomato and herbs. It’s oven-baked and usually served with mozzarella but a dairy intolerance necessitated an absence of the cheese. Not a problem, as Seren cook everything fresh to order.

Both dishes went down very well, with my lamb tender and juicy in the rich tomato sauce. The sourness of the yoghurt complemented with sweetness of the meat and tomatoes, as is typical with cuisine from the Mediterranean. I did manage to burn my tongue on the bread, which I then exacerbated by chewing on the chilli which came atop the dish, but a mouthful of yoghurt sorted that out. The Karniyarak was equally appreciated: apparently ungreasy, the aubergine was soft and flavoursome, the herbed meat delicious. I should know, I tried a big mouthful.

Thankfully the portions weren’t huge, so puddings were chosen. I went for Kayisi: sun-dried apricot cooked in honey syrup with ice cream. It was top. Soft, plump and juicy fruit swimming in an unctuous sauce cut with icy oral refreshment. My partner went for baklava, a classic of the area. Four pieces of the filo and pistachio cakes exploding with honey syrup and served with cream and a drizzle of a dark fruit sauce. As good a portion of baklava as I think either of us have tasted.

Coffees finished up (one filter, and one a classic Turkish coffee, with a dusty, thick texture and served with amaretto liqueur). Replete, we had spent £46.50 including drinks which represents good value in an area in which restaurant choice is something of a lottery.