You know how it goes – you have no food or booze in your home so you need to leave the house, so you text your friends to see if they want to meet you somewhere, and so they do, and you get food and you get booze, and that’s a good thing, but then UGH, you’re stuck talking to your friends. Some bars solve this problem by being far too loud to manage conversations, but better bars help you cope by providing board games.

To avoid having to actually talk to your friends, we suggest that you check out Duke Carvell’s, the Southern Cross and Monterey Newtown, all of whom provide a selection of games like Scrabble or Risk that you can use for a very pleasurable quiet evening out.

Other bars provide pub quizzes so you have something to talk about. I used to love the Electric Quiz on Tuesdays at the Southern Cross until a) the good quiz master moved away and b) they started doing 2-for-1 stone grills on Tuesday nights and now the whole place smells like rancid meat (and I’m saying that as an enthusiastic carnivore). Most quizzes in town are pretty generic and far too sports-oriented, so I love one particular quiz on Wednesdays that features coronet-playing and crazyass spot prizes. Of course it’s at Mighty Mighty, and it’s hosted by our friend Richard from Fishhead Magazine. But don’t go to that, because my team The Jo Sandwich will beat you.

Sometimes quizzes are too hard though, and involve too much thought. I really wish we had a fun bar to play a cheeky game of bingo in. There was Bogan Bingo a while ago, but that’s not the same thing. I just wanna sit and listen to someone call out numbers, and drink, and then maybe win something. Wellington, make that happen okay?