Being Human (2009)

 

A sea with three stars: 99-100

Opponent: Computer Level 9

Date Started: 11th July 2025

Date Finished: 23rd July 2025

Lost the last four last legs. Sorry, I bottled the last four legs. I was actually 99-96 up, and I still couldn't finish off a Dart App. Did I throw for the match? Probably . . . I can't remember now. (I'm writing this post in early August.)

These things are sent to us. Not for stiff upper lip purposes . . . just to fucking laugh at you.

100-87

Game started:   17th June 2025

Game finished:  20th July 2025

It's nice to get a win against the Russ Bray App. Admittedly, it's not 501 and it's not Level 9 . . . but I will take it.

20 years ago today

That's wild. That's the post.

Sorry, no mention of Cornish Pasties.

The Commitments (1991)

 

Taskmaster (2015)

 

A grand total of 42 . . . but grand all the same.

Occasionally I throw these posts in to pad out the blog. It could be worse, I could be moaning about social media and/or zoomers.

There is a skill involved here. At least for the second and third dart. No idea what was going on with the first one. Maybe win the lottery and hire a hypnotherapist to unearth what was going on with that first dart. It could be a movie.

Taskmaster (2017)

 

The Job Lot (2013)

 

I Don't Like Mondays . . .

Nearly fell down the stairs whilst taking the dog out; I literally had to headbutt the wall (hard) to stop that falling-in-slow-motion action that happens when you're about to go arse over tit. Came back to find that someone had stolen our mail/packages again, with the only piece of mail left telling us that K. had got a speeding ticket. 

So, yeah, Mondays can be a pain in the arse . . . even when you do hit 180s.

160/50

Fever Pitch (1997)

 

Killing me: 93-100

Opponent: Computer Level 9

Date Started: 21st June 2025

Date Finished: 10th July 2025

A bit drawn out this game. 19 days to complete. Not sure what happened . . . apart from the obvious that I got beat.

A 20% doubles success is actually good for me. But, of course, the Russ Bray App likes to turn up the heat when I'm actually throwing a quarter-decent match. James Wade decided to enter the chat and shoot on the doubles. At least this time it wasn't Phil Taylor. (The App occasionally goes into Taylorish mode when the mood strikes.)

I also hit a 13-darter in this match which is something of a rarity.

Viz like

 I'm easily amused.

This is probably the first and last time Tolkein ever gets mentioned on this blog.

Dept. Q (2025)

 

13-Darter

The previously mentioned 180 was part of a 13-darter. Numbers please:

100, 180, 45, 140, D18 checkout (115.6 average).

'There is black on the Union Jack.'

A change of flights and a change of fortune? 

Nah, I'm throwing okay. Elbow's a bit sore but that's comes with the territory . . . and the old age.

155/50

Mixing Darts and Politics

I saw a chance to come up with a 'Mixing Darts and Politics' label, and I seized it. I'm not apologising.

Political poetry signage from the recent 2025 Poland Darts Masters:

The bucket hats suggest that they should have been at the Oasis gig but they seem happy enough. A nice touch to have the Rob Cross lookalike holding the sign.

'A waste of gunpowder and sky . . . '

Another Friday passing, another passed up opportunity to kick-start the Friday Playlists again. One day . . . one future Friday is all it takes.

In the meantime, as the local rowdies go overboard with the fireworks in the neighborhood (American spelling), a trip down memory lane with a wonderful performance from Aimee Mann on Later with Jools Holland, that dates from 1993. I remember buying her debut solo album purely on the strength of the track  '4th of July', which I stumbled upon via a music magazine compilation. 

I've being revisiting my early 1990s record collection more and more recently. The 1980s have been warned . . . you're on notice.

The fact that I watched The Big Lebowski last night -  Aimee Mann had a cameo in that film - is purely coincidental.

Blogger's Update:

It turns out that I'm on repeat. I'm nothing if not predictable.

An Evangel of Unrest: The Life Story of Bonar Thompson by Bonar Thompson ( (Marble Arch, W.l. 1926)

From the commencement of the conflict until my arrest in 1916, I spoke against it, in various parts of London, particularly in Finsbury Park—the scene of many a deed and vow.

The "Daily Herald" League, from whose platform I hurled the challenge to every warmonger in London, was a magnificent band of rebels who carried the war against war into the enemy’s camp with unrelenting vigour and audacity, contesting the ground inch by inch without qualification or reservation.

* * *

The campaign of “rounding up,” "roping in” and "combing out” was prosecuted by the enemy with the utmost determination. Every art and artifice, every dodge and device, by which to lure the young men into the war-trap, was employed by an unscrupulous and unprincipled governing class.

Touts and informers were lurking at every street corner on the look out for any poor devil who might not care to offer his carcase as a bullet stopper. Such as these were dubbed ”shirkers" and ”slackers,” and no effort was spared to land them in the net. I had many an encounter with the harpies and hirelings who lay in wait for the likely recruit, the following dialogue invariably taking place :—

Question: ”Why aren’t you in khaki?”

Answer: "Because there's a war on."

Question : ”What would you do if the Germans came here ?”

Answer: "Volunteer for foreign service.”

With the Recruiting Officer a similar interchange occurred :—

R. O. : " Well, lad, have you thought about it?” 

B. T. : ” Yes.”

R. O. : ” Going to join up?”

B. T.: “No!”

R. O. : ” How’s that?”

B. T. : ”I’ve thought about it.”

The Fleet Street Scribblers were working overtime in their lie-foundries manufacturing elaborate fabrications for the delectation of a gullible population. German spies, plots, atrocity stories, children’s hands cut off, corpse factories, and a hundred likely and unlikely stories festering in the fevered fancy of the rabble rousers of the reptile Press.

The ordinary Englishman had an impression in his head at the beginning of the war that the German people were neither better nor worse than anybody else.

This illusion had to be destroyed. All such errors must be swept from his mind. The Germans were not ordinary human beings. They were fiends in human form, vermin who must be destroyed like rats.

As one eminent Churchman, Father Bernard Vaughan, so veil put it: "There are two classes in the world to-day— human beings and Germans. The duty of every Christian is to kill Germans, and go on killing Germans."

These noble words rang out like a clarion call to the nation, rousing the laggards from their lethargy, opening men’s eyes to a realisation of the situation.

Very soon the whole population—with the exception of a negligible number of morbid and dangerous fanatics—was in the grip of the gospel of Hun-hating, waves of patriotic enthusiasm sweeping them along on their holy mission.

Some brave fellows, itching to do their bit in the sacred cause of ”right against might,” could not wait until they got to France to show their patriotism, and commenced operations on the Home Front by raiding shops kept by poor German shopkeepers in the East End, many a deathless deed of devotion and heroism being recorded in the great onslaught on those poor German pork butchers' establishments.

A bit of a novelty

- '"A bit of a novelty?"  Pray tell.' 

- 'I thought you'd never ask. Well . . . line up the bullet points please, maestro:

• It's my first 180 of July. In fact, my first 180 in over a week. I've not been throwing as much in recent weeks, what with the weather in Mad Max territory and the league season being over, so I've been off the boil. Hey, I've not even been on the stove to be in a position boil. (Don't worry, I groaned too.)
• It was one of those 180s where I didn't know I was actually throwing for a 180. Bad eyesight and bad lighting ensured that I couldn't get any jitters before throwing the third dart. I'll take it.
• If you look closely at the picture, you'll see a 2020 throwback. One of the flights is inverted. I used to do that all the time back in the day to extend the life of a flight for a couple of days but I stopped doing it in recent years 'cos I was using better quality flights. These current flights are a bit flimsy so they got beat up quicker. I took a trip down darting memory lane, and turned one flight inside out. The genius of the inverted flight is that you now know to throw that one first out of the three, so there's less likelihood of the flight bouncing out. You can take your arm and a leg moulded flights and shove them up your arse. Old school. Well, not real old school 'cos that would be paper and/or feather flights but 'older' school'. 
  

153/50

The Big Lebowski (1998)