Tinder and Bumble step aside - it's time for an old-school singles night in Newcastle

If you were at a bar, you’d write it down on the back of a coaster. Or on your arm.

As soon as you got home, you’d call the person you liked on a dial-up phone. Nah, that wouldn’t be cool, would it? 

Two or three days later, you’d call the person you liked on a dial-up phone, with the long twirly cord wedged between the door and door jam of the room you were seeking privacy in.

You’d ask them out. It wasn’t called a date. That was way too American. It was just called going out. You’d go see a movie, hold hands and have a pash.

Going back a bit further in time, you’d go to the local milk bar, buy a milkshake and drink it together from two straws. You might go to the theatre together, wearing your Sunday-best.

If things went well, you might start courting. There’d be a bit of romance. If you were lucky, you’d find true love.

Now you just swipe right.

But not everyone likes the swiping game, which is why there’s an event in Newcastle on Friday that seeks to “stop the swipe”.

The event – called Hit the Town! Singles Bar Hop – is designed to help Newcastle singles connect in real life.

And the truth is, for some, dating apps can be a bore.

Event organiser Lauren Taylor reckons it’s time to go back in time.

“Often when I’m chatting to friends, the topic comes up about how hard it is to actually meet people in bars these days,” Lauren said.

“Apps like Tinder and Bumble have begun to wear thin.”

She wanted to help people move away from dating apps and get “back into the real world of meeting single people, face-to-face”.

The event is aimed at those aged in their 20s and 30s, who are looking for a fun and relaxed way to meet other singles.

Basically, it’s a combination of speed dating and pub crawl.

Three groups of ladies and three groups of bachelors will rotate around three different bars in Newcastle’s CBD over the evening.

As well as helping singles meet, the organisers are proud to support small bars in Newcastle, especially during this tough time of light-rail construction.

Visit singleeventsnewcastle.com/hitthetown for more details.

Topics wrote recently about a 51-year-old woman who was charged for allegedly riding a horse to a bottle shop in Logan, south of Brisbane, while more than four times over the limit.

This led Bob “Minmi Magster” Skelton to tell us his story of riding his horse from Minmi to Seahampton to celebrate a mate’s birthday back in the 1980s. He hit the road at nightfall after a few too many drinks, but the horse found its way home, with the Magster virtually asleep in the saddle.

Edgeworth’s Gary Lawless said he doesn’t “condone being in charge of an equine while under the influence”.

“But I must confess to a few transgressions when I was younger.”

Gary was once a regular at a small pub in “an outer suburb of Newcastle, nestled under the shadow of Mt Sugarloaf”.

“All the locals knew each other. It was a great place to unwind,” he said.

“One old guy used to regularly ride his horse the few miles from his home to the pub, tie him up in the yard at the back and join his mates for a few ales before he saddled up for the ride back home.

“It was always good for a laugh watching him struggle to mount his horse in a drunken state, and then head off. Luckily the old horse always seemed to take control and get him home safely, with only a few near falls on the way.

“If he was in a really bad state, the publican would put the horse up for the night and arrange a lift home for him, but this didn’t happen often.”

One night, he decided to take a carton of twist tops home with him. He packed the small bottles into saddlebags, fitted for just this purpose.

“Now, the thing with saddlebags is they need to be fitted properly. When packed, the weight needs to be evenly distributed. Another thing is to make sure the horse is used to them banging on his side when he moves.”

This old feller did none of these things.

When the horse heard the clink of the bottles, he jumped and bucked “in a way that a bareback rodeo horse would be proud of”.

“He dumped off his owner and proceeded to buck without restraint until the saddlebags were empty and nearly every bottle of beer was lying broken beneath him.”

He was unhurt but lamented the loss of his beers.

“The publican took him inside and settled him down with a couple of rums, and the old horse spent another night in the pub’s backyard mowing the lawn.

“The old guy kept riding his horse to the pub, but from that day forward his long-suffering missus picked up his bottled beer.”

Socceroos media officer Ben O'Neill tweeted this: “The World Cup brings many people together but also displays how small a world it is. One of Denmark’s two team media officers, Pia Schou Nielsen, went to school at Warners Bay near Newcastle, where I am from. What are the odds?