Happy new year.  Hope you had a good Christmas.

A few things quickly struck me about going to see the darts at Alexandra Palace.  Firstly, it’s a lot smaller than you’d think.  Secondly, and incongruously, the dart board is a lot further away than you’d think.  Thankfully, a pair of giant projection screens flank the stage and provide a helpful clue about what on earth’s going on.  This is surprisingly useful; the alternative is seeing the back of fine, athletic, players throwing darts at a fuzzy round target.

Andree Welge at the oche in his match with Colin Lloyd

So, in summary: it’s £30 to watch a the evening’s darts on a big TV. And it didn’t even look to be HD. And there was no commentary from the legendary Sid Waddell.  And the beer was £3.40 a pint (but served at the table by enterprising keg-carriers).  Freebies included boards to write amusing and/or coded messages on and some amusing Ladbroke’s ear warmers. This was just as well, considering our night at the darts coincided with London’s worst cold snap for at least a year.

Proof. I really was there.

But, those major pitfalls aside, the atmosphere is excellent.  Excellent and boozy.  Even the attending ladies were going in hard with the grain.  Luckily for them, relieving themselves didn’t entail a half-mile walk and a long flight of stairs.  It did, and my thighs concur with my view here, for us chaps.

In terms of the action, we saw a first round surprise as Co Stompé went out to Peter Wright.  The crowd boo’d and jeered when Colin Lloyd (playing Andree Welge) thumped the board, mid-game, in frustration.  The noise picked up by the board’s microphones nearly blew the roof off the place; Nick’s top tip is to not be near the PA system next time Jaws steps up to the oche.  I could tell you more, but I’d merely be repeating what’s on the PDC Website.  Go have a look there if you’re massively bothered.  Which I suspect you’re not.  So you won’t click that link.  Which makes me wonder why I’ve put it in.

Oh, yes, and I managed to get on TV.  Sort of.

Hopefully Sky TV won’t mind too much.

I aim to do more Things soon.  Sorry I’ve been hopeless lately.  (Not that you care; you’ve probably already skipped over this post in Google Reader or something.  What’s that?  Hmm.  Oh, OK.)