Day 27 - Thursday, January 27th, 2011

Work had the most magnificent of interruptions in the guise of lunch with Baron Bryan de Hoey, a frightful Southsider who is quite the doppelganger of Prince William of Wales. We adjoined to The Long Stone hostelry, for finest carvery victuals. My first choice of lasagne was lamentably sold out, so I made do with Southern Fried Chicken, which came with magnificent accompaniments of carrots, cabbage, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, chips and - bonus prize - a complimentary slice of roast ham! Naturally it goes without saying that it was bleedin' d'lish.

I re-emerged from NorTrust at 5.21pm, and made a bee-line to Doolan's, amphitheatre of Thursday Night Darts Club's 70th tournament. In honour of the milestone, Frank von Doolan kindly bestowed all 9 athletes with 2 free pints each, and a quality feed of variant ultra-fresh sangitches, complemented by succulent cocktail sausages and sublime chicken lengths, which were wolfed down with emotional ceremony.

Back at the oche, phenomenal feats of athletic prowess were being performed, none less than Lara Della Volpe's stunning score of 156 (triple 20, triple 20, double 18). James "The Peach" Leach (also known as The Dark Destroyer) emerged with his 7th title following a narrow but deserved 2 point victory over John "The Equaliser" Delaney. It was a joint 3rd showing for me, and the record will also show that I scored 2 of 5 scores of 140 that were registered during the evening.

               A radiant Jimmy celebrates his 7th TNDC title win, flanked by the dashing McEvoy siblings

                                                    Those were the scores, George Dawes

                          The National Convention Centre looks more lovely as each evening goes by


Contentment :   9.5 / 25
Excitement :     3 / 10
Memorability : 3 / 15

Overall Score : 31% (15th out of 27)