Day 104 - Thursday, April 14th, 2011

The weather, of which I do not speak too much, is very pleasing these days, making particularly pleasant the walks to work and from there to the 80th Thursday Night Darts Club, which once again was at Doolan's. There were nine athletes in attendance - the highest figure since mid-January - and the standard was particularly magnficent (by modest TNDC measurements). Gar "Milky Bar" Kiernan set the tone by busting a 132 finish (scoring 140 instead) before hitting a sublime 126 finish (treble 20, double 16, double 17) as well as a 97 finish and a 140 score, also registered by Conor "The Conqueror" O'Keeffe.

Alas, Gar had to leave early due to paternal duties, and his generous lead was erased by John "The Equaliser" Delaney, giving him a record 29th TNDC title. The night also saw the welcome return of Lara "Tryples" Della Volpe after a multi-week darting sabbatical and of Justin "Judge Dredd" Bartholomew who after a couple of hours of abstinence, proceeded to drain Doolan's singular keg of €3.50 Olm lager. With so many athletes present, the craic was particularly mighty, most especially during the games of Lives and Reverse Lives.

Despite fine Centra Chicken Noodles and half of an utterly d'lish 12 inch Chicken and red onion pizza in Doolan's (delivered by local Italian eaterie Di Bella), I felt that I needed to boost the revenue of the newly-opened local chippy, with a healthy aluminium tray packed with chipped potato, rice and curry sauce goodness.

                                       4 of TNDC's finest athletes, after a strenuous night's toil
Contentment : 16.5 / 25
Excitement :    3.5 / 10
Memorability : 3 / 15

Overall Score : 46% (20th out of 104)