Of all our Qype events, last night’s All Star Lanes extravaganza was our most action packed (that’s a photo of the private room in their Bayswater branch, isn’t it pretty?) First there was tasty food in the All American Diner:

Then drinks. Here’s Qypers RawEdge, Matty Groves and Carrybroadmoor getting tipsy on julep cocktails:

And bowling. That’s Qyper JaneB getting her bowl on (whilst being tipsy):

And karaoke! This is photo evidence of the BEST karaoke seen in the history of Qype. From KatBrown and LJ Rich.

And a fabulous bowling tournament that ended with cheering, that looked like this (my winning was only because of Rawedge and MrPointyHead who actually hit the pins):

Want to see more pics? Head over to my Flickr set for a nose about. Want to go have bowling fun? Head over to the All Star Lanes website and book yourself a lane. You’ll probably see us there, still throwing balls into the gutter, but rocking out fabulously on the karaoke. We know where our skills lie.

Special thanks to Matt from ASL for being awesome. Follow them on Twitter and you can chat to him. And us too if ya like. They’ve got locations in central and east London too.

In honour of Chinese New Year (February 3rd will see the Year of the Rabbit commence), Warren Street’s newly opened oriental izakaya (“tapas”) restaurant, Mushu, will offer an exclusive free night of yummy East Asian treats to a few lucky Qypers. We’ll snack on a selection of tapas from the menu, have a few drinks and even get the scoop on how to make Mushu’s delicious Beijing dumplings. Cross your fingers we’ll also get to sample their pork and cabbage dumplings, nasu dengaku and prawn tempura.

If you’re available on the Tuesday the 8^th of February from 6.30pm, hop over to the Qypers Love Events forum for a brilliant evening of umami fun!

Many of you may be celebrating Burns night with ceilidhs this week, but up to 600,000 people across the capital will probably be feeling homesick and patriotic in equal measures this Wednesday.

For those of us Antipodean Londoners (No, that’s not an oxymoron) the 26^th January is Australia day – an assertion of our independence and celebration of all that is good about our nation.  As we can’t have sunshine, beach or decent low-carb beer, we’ll make do and celebrate at the well-known drinking holes around our adopted city.

Whilst we may have missed the carnage of the TNT celebrations last Sunday, here are a few favourites to toast the day:

Everyone knows the best party will be at Walkabout SheBu (Shepherds Bush for the uninitiated) Starting at 10am – 3.00am, it’ll by messy by midday, but the music and drinks prices will be worth it.

The Clapham outpost will be auctioning Hunks in Trunks and Babes in Bikinis from 8.30pm to raise money for the Queensland floods.

If it’s the music you miss, then the Triple J Hottest 100 countdown will be aired in many venues, including Belushi’s and Brogan’s among others.

Aussie movies are the slightly more grown-up theme at Jetlag,  with a Heath Ledger double-bill, Strictly Ballroom or The Castle.

For just the taste of down under, try My Dining Room in Fulham are offering 2 courses for £15 or 3 courses for £19.50 with treats like kangaroo terrine, BBQ of lamb and prawns and Mango pavlova. Beats a meat pie, if you ask me…

South-Westies will like the £2 beers at Billabong and best-dressed Australian competitions are sure to be a riot.

Finally, dare I suggest The Redback at Acton? There’s a free Barbie from 1pm – 3pm and free T-shirts to the first 200 punters in. It will be hot. It will be free entry. It will be sticky and messy and hopefully you won’t remember much of it.

Where will you be toasting the Motherland?