I have a number of emotionally wrought middle-aged men in my friendship group, one of whom recently discovered the game of darts to be a wonderfully mindful tonic for his troubles. I thought: I’ll have a bit of that, so I joined him for a game. I have played on and off for years and was now reminded that I can definitely add darts to the long list of pursuits at which I am incandescently mediocre. I reckon that since I first picked up a dart around 40 years ago, I have improved not a jot.
Still, as the lockdown loomed, while everyone else was fighting over toilet roll, I panic-bought a dartboard. This was my chance. Shamefully, I abused my position as a radio presenter to get some advice. (The internet hadn’t yielded much. There were basics about keeping your shoulders square to the board and your body still, but not much else. I was up for breaking it down and analysing it like a golf swing.) My producer persuaded a many-times world champion, Trina Gulliver, to come on. She said there wasn’t much she could do without seeing me in action, and in any case all it boiled down to was practising by throwing millions of darts. This put me in mind of some technical advice the golf champion Laura Davies once gave me at Gleneagles: “Stop dicking around and just hit it.”
In the spirit of this, I have now embarked on a structured new regime. I resolved to try to hit every number from one to 20 in fewer than 60 darts. I am proud to tell you that in less than two weeks I have managed to do it using a mere 54 darts. Now for the doubles, and then the trebles, and a whole new career opens up before me.
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