This Saturday, November 23, the lotto annual of festival committee of Plailly filled the sports hall on rue de Bethlehem. From 6:15 p.m., the first aficionados are already crowding in front of the doors of the gymnasium.The event will last until midnight.
On the large stage installed across the entire width of the room, the prizes up for grabs, television, washing machine, rub shoulders with the gifts offered by Plea merchants. Sitting in front of his microphone, Thierry Bertheux, president of the association and host of the evening, checks the final settings. The fifteen or so volunteers are working energetically in every corner.
At 6:30 p.m., the crowd has grown and can finally enter the hall where the game cards are made available to visitors. Four euros a piece, ten euros for three. Several hundred will be sold in the evening.
The temperature goes up a notch
At 8:00 p.m., the temperature rises. The players are seated at tables lined up along the forty meters of the room. Thierry Bertheux shoots the first balls for a “quine”. Explanations from the host: “The quine is a line. Then there is the double quine and all the cardboard with the three lines. When it’s complete, shout ‘quine!’
Message received more or less well. The first winners sometimes raise a shy hand, but the atmosphere is good and the rhythm is quickly established. Regulars are easily spotted with their personalized equipment such as colored or personalized tokens. Others did not come empty-handed and uncorked some good bottles and sandwiches, just to have a good time.
A break for smokers
In the middle of the evening, a break is welcome for smokers. The recovery is being used to launch a special draw with boxes published for the occasion, the profits of which will be donated to the social grocery store “Entraide – la source”. Last year’s record (700 euros) was broken with 870 euros.
The quines follow one another, the lots arouse more and more interest as the hours go by. It’s Christiane Moity, who came with her grandchildren from Puiseux-en-France, in Val d’Oise, who wins television. Yolande Le Cornet, from Loisy (Oise), wins the washing machine to which is added a copy of a work of art by the Italian Maurizio Cattelan, consisting of a banana stuck with tape on a painting. “The original has just been sold for more than six million dollars at an auction in New York,” explains Thierry Bertheux to a hilarious winner.
“It was a good evening,” underlines the president who is already looking forward to December 14 for the Christmas evening organized in the town hall park. “There will be Santa Claus, we are just waiting for the sleigh to arrive,” he rejoices.
