Clerks (1994)

 

LuLaRich (2021)

 

'Up that Loganville Estate'

54/50

A Day Out (1972)

 

Crime (2021)

 

Comfort and Joy (1984)

 

Common Murder by Val McDermid (The Women's Press Crime 1989)

 

I’m sorry, Duncan, but I quit. I resign. As of now, I don’t work for you any more.” She stopped abruptly, feeling tears beginning to choke her. She snatched up the sheaf of copy from the table where Duncan had laid it, turned, and walked out of the office. No one tried to stop her.

In the ladies’ toilet, she was comprehensively sick. She splashed cold water on her face and took several deep breaths before heading for the offices of Socialism Today.

Here there were no security men on the door to challenge her, no secretaries to vet her. She walked straight up to the big room on the second floor where the journalists worked. Dick was perched on the corner of his desk, his back to her, a phone jammed to his ear. “Yeah, okay…” he said resignedly. “Yeah, okay. Tomorrow it is then. See you.” He slammed the phone down. “Fucking Trots. Who needs them?” he muttered, turning round to reach for his mug of coffee. Catching sight of Lindsay, he actually paled. “Christ! What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’ve got a story for you,” she said, opening her bag and taking out another copy of her manuscript.

“Is it to do with the computer print-out?” he demanded.

“Sort of. Among other things. Like murder, kidnapping, GBH, and spying. Interested?”

He shook his head reluctantly. “Sorry, Lindsay. No can do. Listen, I had the heavies round at my place last night about you. It’s a no-no, darling. It may be the best story of the decade, but I’m not touching it.”

A sneer of contempt flickered at the corner of Lindsay’s mouth. “I expected the big boys at the Clarion to wet themselves at the 

“thought of prosecution. But I expected you to take that sort of thing in your stride. I thought you were supposed to be the fearless guardian of the public’s right to know?”

Dick looked ashamed and sighed deeply. “It wasn’t prosecution they threatened me with, Lindsay. These are not people who play by the rules. These are not pussycats. These are people who know how to hurt you where you live. They were talking nasty accidents. And they knew all about Marianne and the kiddy. I’ll take risks on my own account, Lindsay, but I’m not having on my conscience anything that might happen to my wife and child. You wouldn’t take chances with Cordelia, would you?”

Lindsay shook her head. Exhaustion surged over her in a wave. “I suppose not, Dick. Okay, I’ll be seeing you.”

Starter for 10 (2006)

 

That Cardiacs song

 Two 180s in the same month? It's been a while. It must be from watching all the darts.

53/50

I'm walking back from this previous statement. The Loxley Robins - for the foreseeable future - will be my dart of choice. I hope it works out for me.

Porridge (1979)

 

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

 

The Unbelievable Truth (1989)

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

 

The Guard (2011)

 

"Wait a moment . . ."

Just like when you were kid when you would go outside for a kickabout after watching a cup final, I picked up my darts after watching today's World Championship Darts. I'm really enjoying the Loxley Robins darts now.

They are not just a novelty, gimmicky dart.

52/50

The Split (1968)

 

Slinging Arrows by Wayne Mardle (Ebury Press 2021)

 

There does come a point when every darts player is forced to confront his or her intake and for me that point came in Vegas – where else? – during the summer of 2004. I’d reached the final of the PDC’s third Las Vegas Desert Classic, a huge event at the Vegas MGM Grand.

Remember when Tyson fought Holyfield in 1997? Same place. Some aspects of my own experience at the MGM were similar – for instance, the huge LED screens above the stage, which had once flashed with the rotating names MIKE TYSON and EVANDER HOLYFIELD, were still there, and were now reading PHIL TAYLOR and WAYNE MARDLE. (It’s quite something seeing your name up in lights like that, and it’s hard not to feel empowered. I remember seeing the stage and thinking: ‘Right, I’m going to maul him. I’m going to absolutely maul him.’) Unfortunately that’s where the similarities end, mainly because while Tyson famously left the ring having torn something off, namely a not insignificant portion of Holyfield’s right ear, I staggered onto the stage after tying one on.

By that I mean I was pissed. I wasn’t paralytic, but equally I hadn’t been to bed for two nights. I was competing against the world’s best player, in a major final, live on Sky Sports, and I hadn’t slept for forty-eight hours because I’d been knocking back champagne, vodka and mojitos, and gambling like a fiend.

The game was due to start at midday, but I’d taken up residence at one of the hotel bars at 6am. I remember when I’d first arrived at this little bar in the middle of the casino – a bar no bigger than ten feet wide, with a little opening for the barman and a handful of poker consoles on top – I’d said to the barman: ‘Are you open?’

And he’d gone: ‘We’re always open.’

It was music to my ears. By that point I’d already been drinking for so long that I’d convinced myself I was sobering up, even though of course I wasn’t sobering up at all and was, in fact, becoming progressively more drunk. The reality of the situation was not something that troubled me when I ordered a vodka and cranberry. Then another. Then several more.

I was having a great time as the clock ticked closer and closer to midday. 

Somewhere in the blur of it all Sharapova won the Wimbledon final, beating Serena Williams, and I’d had a bet on that outcome so I was jumping around the place like a lunatic. And of course by this point the darts fans were all wandering in, and I was there in my Hawaiian shirt so even in Vegas I wasn’t exactly blending in, meaning that the fans were all coming over for photos and autographs.

The barman was watching all this happen – and bear in mind I’d been there two or three hours by that point, and he’d been serving me for the duration, so there was no doubt about it: I was drunk. The barman went: ‘I have to ask, who are you?”

“I said: ‘Well, there’s darts on, isn’t there?’

‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘I know that.’ And then this look of absolute horror crossed his face. ‘Hold on,’ he went. ‘Are you playing?’

‘Yep, I’m in the final.’

He looked me up and down, paused a moment and replied: ‘Can I bet on the other guy?’

‘Yes, you can!’ I declared triumphantly and, with that, I staggered off to face my fate. I turned back, and he was just kind of staring at me, with the most subtle shake of his head. You know the head-shake: the type you’d usually only get from a disapproving parent. And at that point I remember thinking: ‘Wayne, there’s a very slight possibility you might have overdone it.’

This came into focus (and for me, it was pretty much the only thing in focus) when I got downstairs to the practice room and found Phil, already practising. Safe to say, Phil hadn’t exactly been on the piss during his time in Vegas, and the only refreshment he had in front of him was a small portion of fruit. He looked me up and down and said: ‘What the FUCK has happened to you?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, attempting to gloss over the fact that I probably looked like I’d just been dragged away from a brawl outside a tiki bar. ‘I’m fine. I’m fine!’ (If someone tells you they’re fine once, they might be – if they feel the need to tell you twice, they’re not fine at all and are almost certainly pissed.)

I asked Phil what he’d been up to in Sin City and he told me matter-of-factly that he hadn’t left his hotel room in the last seven days. ‘I’m here to play, and win, then go home,’ he said, adding that in his entire time there he’d only left his room to eat and play darts.

I looked at him standing there, all ready to lift another trophy, and I said: ‘Phil, I think you might win this.’

Which, of course, is exactly what happened, although strangely he only beat me 6–4 in sets (and I actually won more legs than him), and it was a pretty close game considering I was off my face on Vegas! As for my trusty barman, who’d been such a friend when he was pouring out those vodka and cranberries, and such a stern parent when I’d staggered off to meet my defeat … Well, despite his claim that he was always open, I didn’t see him again the next day, or the day after that. I like to think he did go and place that bet on Phil winning; that he pocketed the cash and jacked in his job on the spot. At least one of us would have been lucky that day.

Capital (2015)

 

Trust (1990)

 

Everton, Howard's Way (2019)

 

Dracula (1931)

 

Report for Murder by Val McDermid (The Women's Press Crime 1987)

 

Lindsay Gordon put murder to the back of her mind and settled down in the train compartment to enjoy the broken greys and greens of the Derbyshire scenery. Rather like home, she decided. Except that in Scotland, the greens were darker, the greys more forbidding. Although in Glasgow, where she now lived, there was hardly enough green to judge. She congratulated herself on finishing the detective novel just at the point where Manchester suburbia yielded place to this attractive landscape foreign to her. Watching it unfold gave her the first answer to the question that had been nagging her all day: what the hell was she doing here? How could a cynical socialist lesbian feminist journalist (as she mockingly described herself) be on her way to spend a weekend in a girls’ public school?

Of course, there were the answers she’d been able to use to friends: she had never visited this part of England and wanted to see what it was like; she was a great believer in ‘knowing thine enemy’, so it came under the heading of opportunities not to be missed; she wanted to see Paddy Callaghan, who had been responsible for the invitation. But she remained unconvinced that she was doing the right thing. What had made her mind up was the realisation that, given Lindsay’s current relationship with the Inland Revenue, anything that had a cheque as an end product couldn’t be ignored.

The fact that she cheerfully despised the job she was about to do was not a novel sensation. In the unreal world of popular journalism which she inhabited, she was continually faced with tasks that made her blood boil. But like other tabloid journalists who laid claim to a set of principles, she argued that, since popular newspapers were mass culture, if people with brains and compassion opted out the press would only sink further into the gutter. But in spite of having this missionary zeal to keep her warm, Lindsay often felt the chill wind of her friends’ disapproval. And she had to admit to herself that saying all this always made her feel a pompous hypocrite. However, since this assignment involved writing for a magazine with some credibility, she was doubly pleased that it would avoid censure in the pub as well as provide cash, and that was enough to stifle the stirrings of contempt for Derbyshire House Girls’ School.