'Beautiful man, beautiful . . . '

Excuse the hippy speak, but there was something especially pleasing about this 180. Of course, all 180s are to be enjoyed but there was something about how I threw that third dart and the extra oomph just propelled it into the T20 which marked it out as something different. Some 180s just give that greater satisfaction because of effort employed with the third dart. It comes across as less random . . . less by chance . . . even if it's your brain kidding you on.

And, of course, it was a bit of a bonus after missing those back to back 180s an hour before then.

44/50

Darts challenged

So, I just missed two 180s in a row.

. . . it's going to be one of those days.

DTF St. Louis (2026)

 

''Matched it!'

You have to read the title of the post in the voice of Jay from The Inbetweeners.

My second 167 checkout in two weeks. Russ Bray's Dart App isn't going to like that. He will take great delight in punishing me on the doubles for the foreseeable future.

Missed a trick . . . should have been lion flights and a unicorn board

As I write, professional Northerners are assaulting my ears.

Glad to get the 180. Trying to hit at least one a day. I mean, I'm always trying to hit 180s, but it's in my head now to up my frequency. This time last year I was on 108 180s. I'm not sure what's happened this year. Of course, there has been the recurrence of the dartitis  but I genuinely don't think I've fallen off that drastically in the first four months of the year. Maybe I was playing more darts last year? I find that hard to believe. I'll just monitor things to see what happens.

I had to quit practicing within minutes of the 180. I was totally gassed out. Anyone who tells you you can play decent darts even when you're tired is talking out of their arse. Mental and physical strength are both necessary to play decent darts.

43/50

I need noise . . . any noise

. . . whilst playing darts. Otherwise Sid Waddell enters my thoughts* whilst throwing.

 

For background news, I threw on the pilot episode of ER from 1994 'cos I'm jonesing for new episodes of The Pitt, and at the end of every episode of The Pitt, HBO is telling us to watch ER for our medical drama fix. I never bite - every episode of The Pitt has too much to chew on - but they've finally worn me down and I have a new go to for background noise whilst throwing my 26s, 83s and the occasional 180. (See below, folks.)

42/50

 

*I'm lying about Sid Waddell's voice in my head. It's Sid Little's voice.

"I have a severe dose . . . "

I really should have a new label on the blog. Something along the lines of 'Beloved British films half-watched for the seventeenth time whilst practising darts. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

I'm kind of annoyed with myself because you really shouldn't half-watch films. It's a modern disease and I have a severe dose. Stick to listening to podcasts or some music. Don't sell the films short.

Apologies to Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan, Colm Meaney, Paul Whitehouse and countless others. You deserved better.  

The Death of Stalin (2017)

 

No words . . .

The morning after the night before. Yeah, I've got nothing . . . and I have a backlog of 180s to put on the blog.

 

 

 

41/50

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013)

 

"I like to watch the trucks go by."

Posting this on the Monday morning after the weekend.

It would have been 7.32 pm in the UK when I hit this 180. Celtic just squeaked over the line with a 1-0 win against St Mirren two hours before, Hearts came back from a potential banana skin to beat Motherwell 3-1, and I woke up Sunday morning to see that R*ngers came back from 2-0 down to beat Falkirk 6-3.

Two things arise from that previous paragraph. Celtic aren't going to win the title this year. They don't deserve to. It's a toss up between the Huns or the Diet Huns . . . oh, such joy. And I'm really running out of things to write when seeking to add colourful blurb to the blog alongside the 180s. 

Back to trawling through that Gregory Girl film script. That was one of my better ideas, poor executed.

39/40

The Daytrippers (1996)

 

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast (2026)

 

It got a shit review from Roger Ebert

Posted Monday morning, April 13th.

I'd paused this movie. Not because I wasn't enjoying it. I just needed a cup of tea and a late night snack. 

And, as is my habit, I decided to throw some darts whilst waiting for the kettle to boil. The anorak in me means that I can't just throw random darts at the board. They have to mean something. So I fire up the First to 100 game against the Level 9 Bot, which is getting too used to turning into Peak Phil 'Fucking' Taylor when shooting at doubles, and I snag my highest ever outshot/checkout/two fucking fingers to the digital Phil 'Fucking' Taylor wannabe. A 167 for the Darts blockers amongst you: T20, T19, Bullseye. ('Double Cork' if you're reading this in French Lick, Indiana.)

It's the second highest checkout in darts. Only the *cough* Big Fish tops it.

Now, this is where it gets confusing. I was  . . . I am . . . convinced that my previous best was a 158 checkout (T20, T20, D19) but, at this moment in time, I can't find any record/picture of that particular outshot (mix and match, peeps). Did I just imagine it? Is it just like that (probably imaginary) 180 from 1982? Am I imagining things related to darts? Is that a silhouette of Sid Waddell at the window beckoning me to walk towards the light?

Until I find my version of the Zapruder film, we'll never know. 

For 10 minutes I was abolutely on fire . . .

. . . and it doesn't happen that often, so I thought I'd mention it.

 

Screen Two: Honest Decent And True (1986)

 

The Rewrite (2014)

 

Some thursday morning

First three darts of the day !!!! Are you shitting me?

I think I'm going to quit whilst I'm ahead.

26,000 in

A milestone or a millstone?

I'll let you decide. All I know is that when I first started playing Lexulous all those years ago, my brain was disintegrating into mush. I needed it then . . . and I still enjoy it now.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2026)

 

I once had sole . . .

And I wonder why I'm in constant pain with my feet. 

Edited to add: I've only had these shoes for about a year. I must walk like Charlie Chaplin.

Free Fire (2016)

 

A Private Function (1984)

 

Snow Day

 

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2026)

 

Fuck Zuck

Make a wee joke about RFK JR, and this is what happens.

Wankers.

The Wrecking Crew (2026)

 

"I made this !"

It happened and it sucked. Making this meme didn't soften the blow.

Small Prophets (2026)

 

Ten for Ten

Posting this late . . . trying to catch up . . . can't hang around to chat.

Okay, I'll hang around to say this much. Another 180 in the midst of getting up, and getting others up and out on a weekday, early morning. I'm looking for patterns . . . any sort of edge which can somehow increase the flow of 180s. It's all bullshit . . . but it's in keeping with my darting life.

10/50

Fuck the Superbowl . . .

Just hit my second 13-darter in 6 days.

140, 85, 100, 140, D18 checkout.

. . .  Only joking about the Superbowl. Go the Bears. I love Walter Payton and The Fridge.

'In the middle of the night . . . '

How do you put the musical note emojis in post titles? I really need that emoji. It would save a lot of faffing  about. And there would be more Billy Joel references.

Why was I playing at 4.33 am in the morning? As it was three weeks ago - at the time of writing this - I don’t have a scooby. It must have been a random throw in the middle of the night after waking up to go to the bathroom. If I was practising at 4.30 in the morning for any length of time, the neighbours would have been pounding down the door with pitchforks at the ready.

Maybe it’s a thing now? My 180s scoring rate is significantly down for 2026. Don’t ask me why  . . . I’ll just hit you with excuses. Set the alarm for 4.30 . . . go to the bathroom . . . wash hands . . . throw a 180 . . . and then go back to bed. Or is it set the alarm for 4.30 . . . throw a 180 . . .  then go to the bathroom . . . wash hands . . . what would Colin Lloyd do?

8/50

Fancy-danning it

Okay, I've hit this checkout before, so it shouldn't be such a big deal but for it to happen on the same day as the 134 checkout - and when I've been moaning about missing doubles - then I just have to give myself a wee pat on the back.

I've seen players attempt this checkout in the local league, and though the title of the post is 'Fancy-danning it', there's a logic to this outshot. Muscle memory . . . don't fucking waste it. 

13-Darter

So I was down to 81 after 9 darts. Don't quote me on this*, but that might be the first time that I have hit three consecutive 140s against the Dart App in a leg. Unfortunately, I buggered up my 10th and 11th darts but I did set myself up for D12 with my 12th dart . . . which I duly hit with my 13th dart. 

Sometimes it all comes together. That's my fourth 13 darter.

140, 140, 140, 57 and a D12 checkout (115.6 average).

* I'm glad you didn't quote me on that, 'cos it turns out I hit three consecutive 140s the last time I hit a 140.

There's a Lukas Nelson song going through my head right now . . . and I'm fine with it.

Posted February 8th, early morning.

Just catching up. Scrambling for a post title. An earworm helped me out. Really not hitting the 180s in 2026. Not sure why. The dartitis doesn't help.

Edited to add:

What's with the short sentences?

7/50

Tasty . . . very, very tasty

Nope, 134 is not a personal high for a checkout but I was on a high after I hit it . . . especially as the D10 went in under the strain of the dreading-D.

I've got in my head now to use the 19s and 17s more for checkouts. It's not necessarily fancy-danning (if that's not a word, it should be) but more a case of relying on muscle memory 'cos of the Dartitis. That's why it made more sense going for two T19s, then going for the D20, as opposed to the more conventional route of T20, T14, D16. Too much switching around, too much chance of me getting inside my head.

I should stick to this outshot for future reference. Park it alongside 146 and 131. IYKYK.

Another shellacking: 88 - 100

Opponent: Computer Level 9

Date Started: 21st January 2026

Date Finished: 2nd February 2026

 

I'm a bit behind with my 2026DartsChallenge updates. Not much to report to be honest, a few 180s (far fewer than this time last year), me whining about my ongoing Dartitis and me suffering beatings at the hands of the Russ Bray Darts App (Level 9).

A few months back I was beating Level 9 quite regularly but I've fallen back again into consecutive defeats once again. I'm sure the Dartitis has played its part (yawn) but, more importantly, it's my piss poor attempts at doubling. I consistently outscore Level 9 - which wasn't always the case - but I can't finish a leg. I have to get my double success above 20% at least, if I'm going to start winning again. 

 

Ironically enough, I think I'm better at hitting doubles in league matches . . . but my mind might just be playing tricks on me.

 

It's probably the surname . . .

. . . they put two and two together and come up with a leprechaun with a set of darts in his hand. Maybe they think my dartitis is me doing the Riverdance?

That's the second time someone at the darts has assumed I'm Irish 'cos of my accent. I wouldn't mind but if you leant out my window and threw a soda bread onto the street there's a strong chance you hit an Irish-American. It turns out Irish-Americans can't fathom accents.

What can I do? Run up a makeshift kilt and wear it with a Tam o' shanter hat every time I walk out the door? With my varicose veins? I'd get sectioned. 

Poor Folk by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Penguin Classics 1846)

 

On the other hand, perhaps she's just a fraud, purposely sending a hungry, feeble child out to dupe people, and thereby making him ill. And what does the poor boy learn from handing out these letters? His heart merely grows hard- ened; he goes around, runs up to people, begging. The people are going about their business, and they have no time. Their hearts are stony; their words are cruel: 'Be off with you! Go away! You won't make a monkey out of me!' That is what he hears from everyone's lips. His child's heart grows hardened, and the poor frightened boy shivers for nothing in the cold, like a little bird that has fallen out of a broken nest. His arms and legs are frozen; he gasps for breath. The next time you see him, he is coughing; it is not long before illness, like some unclean reptile, creeps into his breast, and when you look again, death is already standing over him in some stinking corner somewhere, and there is no way out, no help at hand — there you have his entire life! That's what life can be like! Oh, Varenka, it's so agonizing to hear those words 'For the love of Christ', and to walk on, and give the boy nothing, to say to him: 'God will provide.' Some 'For the love of Christ' are not so bad. (There are various kinds of them, little mother.) Others are long-drawn-out, habitual, studied - a beggar's stock-in-trade; it's not so hard to refrain from giving to one of those — he's an inveterate beggar, one of long stand- ing, a beggar by trade; he's used to it, you think, he'll get over it, he knows how to get over it. But another will be unpractised, coarse, terrible — as today when, just as I was about to take the letter from the boy, a man standing by the fence, who was selecting the people he asked for money, said to me: 'Give me a half-a-copeck, barin, for the love of Christ!' in such a rude, abrupt voice that I shuddered with a sense of terrible emotion, but did not give him a half-copeck: I didn't have one. And then again, there's the fact that rich people don't like the poor to complain of their lot out loud — they say they are causing trouble, being importunate! Yes, poverty is always importunate — perhaps those groans of hunger keep the rich awake!

Faded Memories

Posted February 8th, early morning.

I remember absolutely bugger all about this 180 . . . but I'm glad it exists.

6/50

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

 

Orphans (1998)

 

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (Oxford University Press 1911)

 

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.

It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the “natives” were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two. I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the families on his line.

“He’s looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that’s twenty-four years ago come next February,” Harmon threw out between reminiscent pauses.

I should be bored by now: 81 - 100

Opponent: Computer Level 9

Date Started: 11th January 2026

Date Finished: 21st January 2026

 

One of my worst performances in recent memory. I couldn't even outscore Level 9 this time, then blame it all on missing the doubles. No 180s either in 181 legs of darts. The only crumb of comfort is that I hit three ton-plus checkouts. That's not to be sniffed at.

 

 

100 - 89

Opponent: Computer Level 8

Date Started: 22nd September 2025

Date Finished: 2nd February 2026

 

Three-and-a-half months to finish a game ! Do I have to state the obvious? I don't really enjoy playing Cricket at home. At best, I use it as a warm up 'practice' for 501 games. Sad but true. 

 

Nice to get a win, though.

"You take pictures of your 180s?"*

Another 180 from that Luck of the Draw which annoyed me. (The Luck of the Draw, not the 180.) I guess it should have been my last 180 at that bar . . . actually, it still might.

5/50

*From a bemused G.A. He was right to be bemused. I have to get over it . . . just not yet.

Let there be (a bit more) light

Back at the Dickensian themed bar (not really), and another 180. 

It was a Luck of the Draw night, and I'd originally been at the *cough* 'Down Down' bar just down the road but I made the trek over because I was under a mistaken impression . . . I thought it was going to be a last chance night. It turns out it wasn't. Just another in a recent longish line of mistaken impressions. 

Ho hum, you'd like to think you'd live and learn . . . but I probably won't.

It wasn't so much a 'last chance' but it is a 'last throw' for Luck of the Draw at that place. It didn't sit right and pouring out the door past 1am is not conducive to my constitution. At least I hit a couple of 180s . . . and I made my cash back.

4/50

In between the tea and the waffles . . .

"Late to the show. Posted 3rd February, early morning. I'm knackered."

An early morning 180. It was about three weeks ago, so I don't remember a scooby about it. A weekday morning, so everyone needed to be somewhere and, as it's just after seven in the morning, Owen would have just left for school in a grumpy mood and Kara would be shouting from the bedroom to ask if the tea was ready.

All that family drama and I still hit a 180. No pressure at this end.

 

 

3/50

"Hold on, I'm in the dark . . . "

"Late to the show. Posted 3rd February, early morning. I'm knackered."

 

Practising before a league match in a Brooklyn Bar on Third Avenue. (Think Dickensian.) It wasn't the match board, so that explains why it's a bit battered and bruised. It also explains the flash for the picture. Turns out, you can't have proper lighting for the spare boards as it distracted from match play. (I'm paraphrasing.)

 

It was the first leg of a semi final and we were playing away. We lost 10-9, which wasn't a bad result overall. The disaster was to occur the following week. Dear reader, we blew it . . . blew it big time.

 

 

 

2/50

The Traitors (2022)

 

Storming the buildings day . . .

Late to the show. Posted 3rd February, early morning. I'm knackered.

 

There's a 180 in there somewhere.

 

 

1/50

I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not (2026)

 

Nancy, we hardly knew you.

Well, that was a bit of a clusterfuck, wasn't it?

In Martin we trust.

Caught Stealing (2025)

 

The Celebrity Traitors (2025)