One Hundred and Eighty! A notable score if I was playing darts or “arrers” as we used to call them; three triple twenties, a maximum. Many a happy night has been spent with a pint in one hand, a quiver full of arrers in the other and some congenial company. In days of yore, practically every Public Bar in the land had a dart board as did many Officers’ Messes. Sadly they have largely been a victim of the gastro pub. Shame. In my old BBC Radio Sport days I went to the World Darts Championship when “the Crafty Cockney”, Eric Bristow MBE was king of the oche. Debate always raged as to whether it was a sport or not, but the atmosphere there was incredible in a dark, smoky, raucous, alcohol fuelled den of iniquity, where audience participation was de rigeur. The way the score caller would announce a maximum, WUUUNNN HUUUNDRED AND AAATTTEE, will remain with me for ever. The game also boasted one of the most iconic commentators in sport in the late Sid Waddell, who had more colourful and descriptive phrases than a Welsh coalminer. Bristow, five times a world champion, suffered in later years from a hideous malaise called “dartitis” which is a psychological problem rather like the “yips” in golf or indeed tennis where the server struggles to release the ball when tossing it up. In darts, you can’t release the arrer properly and it can just go anywhere. What a nightmare. I know the feeling, I’ve suffered from all three! It requires considerable mental gymnastics to overcome the block and many people never do.
There was an intriguing photo in The Times recently. It was the story of Facebook’s spat with Australia and it depicted a pasty-faced Mark Zuckerberg with a high forehead and closely cropped fringe looking either like an android out of Star Trek, or perhaps more malevolently, a Bond villain intent on global domination, that only 007 can prevent. On his shoulder (not literally of course), was The Cleggster, a patrician looking SIR Nick Clegg, the former MEP, MP, Liberal Party Leader and Deputy Prime Minister who has seemingly sold his soul to the devil, no doubt for rather a lot of money. Am I alone in finding the whole Facebook/Zuckerberg thing a bit spooky? …..1984 and all that?
I have often wondered whether scaffolding wouldn’t be rather a good business to be in. Our tall, three storey house has suffered a gutter malfunction, having become blocked with organic material and finally shedding a two metre chunk of plastic half-pipe just outside our back door. Luckily no one was standing underneath at the time but the rainwater now cascades down the wall like a miniature Niagara Falls. Quite promptly the scaffolding men were in to efficiently erect their platform and there the noble structure has stood for a week or more, untroubled by human interest, awaiting the specialists who will hopefully fix the aforementioned gutter; eventually. Presumably (I’m only guessing) the scaffold company charges by the day? Easy money! A large hotel on the seafront burnt to the ground over a year ago, leaving a small section of facade that has been saved for posterity. A large area of scaffolding was put up to support that and some adjoining walls, since when, precisely nothing has happened. I’d love to know how much the scaffolders are earning for that! I think it’s what’s called “residual income”, the holy grail of investors and businessmen alike; or you could just call it money for old rope…..
ADayInTheStrifeOf 