We at bingoholics.com love bingo and anything remotely associated with bingo. So, we hope you enjoy reading this small article in our blog section as it made us chuckle…and knowing a bit of Scottish lingo is helpful but not obligatory, as translations are abundant! It’s all about a bloke whose first word, after an amazing find, yelled to his buddy our favourite word. He could have bellowed ‘Eureka!’ but no it was a big, joyous, triumphant ‘BINGO!’ And that just tickled us pink, as they say.

Two years ago a middle-aged dad, who wishes to preserve his anonymity for reasons you will glean, as you read on, stumbled upon something truly amazing. So, as the story goes, he had been pursuing his hobby of ‘sniping for gold’ for a good 20 odd years. That’s dedication in my or anyone’s book! And what the heck is ‘sniping’, I hear you ask? Well, it means you wear a dry suit and a snorkel; you then equip yourself with some tools to help get gold out of cracks in the bedrock and rocks under a flowing stream or river; a sturdy hammer and chisel comes to my mind but you may need a crevicing tool, small shovel, bulb snifter, and, of course, a towel. So now you know!

Bonnie Scotland is indisputably, amazingly, beautiful; the landscape will take your breath away. And no, I don’t work for the Scottish tourist board but I am a tad biased. It is blessed with towering mountains, lush thick woodlands, lochs and rivers, like the Tay, the Spey, the Clyde, the Tweed and the Forth… and the Don, the Dee and the Deveron! Also, there are plenty of streams, which are not as deep or as long as rivers and are possible to walk across.

So let me transport you to somewhere in Scotland, to a secret location. Sorry, nobody is going to reveal the position, as who wants a gold rush scenario to develop in their backyard…totally understandable. Imagine hoards of folks, with gold prospecting paraphernalia and gold fever in their eyes, staking their plots along the river. Not pretty, utter chaos, pure bedlam for sure!

Mr anonymous and his companion were sniping for hours and it couldn’t have been very comfortable as Scottish water is mighty cold…but then again, don’t they say, “You have to suffer for your art” or “No pain, no gain!” All of a sudden, Mr anonymous hits the jackpot and pulls out a golf-ball sized gold nugget…and we are talking £50,000 worth! It was a ‘stotter’…pure dead brilliant (that’s Scottish for outstanding) in this context…and no wonder he yelled out, “Bingo”! This super rare nugget was named the Douglas Nugget. How intriguing! Douglas, in Scottish culture means ‘black stream’. Could this be a clue, Sherlock? Or is Mr anonymous called Douglas; maybe it’s his surname; or he has a ‘bairn’, a kid, called Douglas; you could go on and on with your conjectures. We may never know! Anyway this Douglas Nugget weighed in at 2.75 Troy ounces. Ya what? Hold your horse let me explain. One regular ounce is 28.35g; a troy ounce is 31.1g. So one whopper and I’m not talking Burger King of a nugget…the largest extracted from British waters in 500 years. Now that’s something to brag about!
So what to do with this beauty; well, the finder has had two years to mull over this dilemma. In the meantime, his not so wee Douglas, has been snug in a safety deposit box. My guess is the two intrepid friends have been sniping to see if they could find a friend for Dougie! Just a thought!

But now we get to the bad news. If he sells his nugget, the Crown Estate could claim the cash. What…Boo! Hiss! Have they never heard of ‘Finders Keepers!’. Anyway, mystery Mr anonymous, as they say in Scotland, “Keep yer heid” and
“Lang may yer lum reek”. For non-Scottish folk that means ‘stay calm, don’t get upset, may you live long and stay well’.

Here’s hoping you and your pal get another BINGO moment in the not too distant future. “Slangevar! We raise our glass to your good fortune”. Oh and if you were to hit it big, you might want to have a little read of the article highlighted in this sentence!