Bullseye

hose two inches of darting ivory which determine the difference between success and failure, between genius and mediocrity, they must be thrown by fat men. You cannot think darts into a treble or a bullseye. You dare not pause long enough to give reflection a sniff. You must throw with a sort of cultivated disdain that is not given to the thin.

If only, my dear parents, you had snatched enough time from your cerebral labours to watch a game of darts. Actually watched one. You would, had you done so, I am sure, have marvelled at the contrast between the overflowing physical abundance of the man throwing and the refined and dainty precision with which he throws. It is a contrast at once aesthetically satisfying and philosophically baffling. How can it be? See an arrow fly in slow motion, see how much it arches and how far it deviates, and it is a miracle it ever finds its target. Would you not imagine the thrower of such a missile to be a person of near supernatural exactitude? And now look who he is!; ‘Tis I, your clumsy and in all other regards bumbling and maladroit son.

The crowd who cheer me don’t bother their heads with any of that. They pour beer down their throats and sing Stand up if You Love the Darts. But you, mother and father, aficionados of art in all mysterious manifestations, are just the people to understand dart’s artistry and yet, out of small-minded snobbery, you look away. And so you miss the marvel and the rare beauty of it. A cheetah can run, a tiger burns bright in the forests of the night, but only your fat, clumsy son can, without raising a sweat, hit a treble-20 from eight feet away whenever he wants to.

I've cycled up round Ally Pally a few times over the past couple of weeks, and the darts crowd are always fabulous: a phalanx marching up the hill all dressed as traffic cones, or smurfs, or in Ali G outfits, or with dartboards round their heads. Mostly blokes, but by no means all blokes. Already good-naturedly boozed up, with loads more boozing to come.

Janice Turner had this mid-week in the Times:

I love everything about the darts. I love how men who, because of their looks and physiques and social class only get to be minor characters in TV soaps, are fist-pumping heroes here. I love how the audience is seated at long tables, drinking great pitchers of beer, as if at a Hogwarts feast. I admire the players’ lightning mental arithmetic and laser focus despite a raucous, silly crowd. I like Michael van Gerwen’s phrenologically fascinating head and Luke Littler’s pretty eyes. I wish only for a Joan Rivers red-carpet interviewer to ask the fancy-dressed fans why they chose traffic cones/prawns/Mexicans/Oompa Loompas as their team uniform. Otherwise it is a perfect bullseye.