Spark & Anvil Privacy

Ball 62 · 1962

loto: a village hall in Provence, France

The device here: nickname. Your caller: Kelly.

Ball 62. Long tables, a stove ticking in the corner, and the whole village squeezed into the hall on a Sunday afternoon. Everyone had a stiff cardboard card with three rows of numbers and a little pile of beans.

And who was sitting at the end of their table but Kelly, the sailor from the ship. “Listen to the caller,” Kelly whispered. “He hardly ever says a plain number.” The caller grinned, gave a number a funny name, and the room groaned and laughed and reached for their beans.

“In a hall like this, everyone knows the names already,” Kelly said. “That is what makes it feel like home.” When someone filled a whole card, the hall shouted “Carton plein!” — full card!

Where this comes from: The year is just the ball’s number. Loto is a living family game in France; no single written source, and the nicknames are our own.

Kelly’s nicknames

  • 3 — “a bird sitting sideways”
  • 5 — “fingers on one hand”
  • 6 — “a snail with its shell up”
  • 9 — “a balloon on a string”
  • 12 — “eggs in a box”
  • 14 — “two weeks of holiday”
  • 33 — “two little seagulls”
  • 44 — “two flags on the boat”
  • 55 — “all the fingers of the twins”
  • 77 — “two walking sticks”

✍️ Write your own nickname calls Next stop: bingo de quermesse →