[Posted on a cold January 2025 morning. 'It's Baltic, btw.']
There is a reason the board looks a bit different. I wasn't at home. I was in a bar in Brooklyn. If you're looking for specifics, a bar 10 minutes away from where I live. (I refuse to be any more specific.)
That begs the question: what am I doing in a bar on a Saturday afternoon in mid-October? Had I become a 'secret lemonade drinker' this late in life? Nothing so drastic. Have you seen the price of bottled beer in bars these days? It would bring a tear to a glass eye. No, late in life, I decided to become a 'secret dart tournament player'. What the hell. It was only 10 minutes up the road, and it would make a novel change from my usual Saturday afternoon of trying to find dodgy clips of the Celtic highlights on YouTube.
There was a lot of hanging around before the tournament actually started but the good thing is that there were four boards in the bar, so there was ample opportunity to practice. I only went and hit a 180 minutes after arriving at the bar. If this was a Hollywood movie - or
that clip from
Ted Lasso - the bar would be packed, and would have erupted into applause. As it's real life - and, more importantly, my life - no one seemed to notice. Even when I got the Kodak Box Brownie out to get a picture of my 48th 180 of 2024. They were either too busy practising themselves, fiddling with their phones or actually socializing with each other. (Weirdos.)
48/50
