Day 98 - Friday, April 8th, 2011

There was an element of extra-curricular activity to work today in the guise of a Grand National Sweep that I was asked to organise. The necessary 40 willing participants were easily sourced, each coughing up a fiver for a total prize pool of €200.

Work dispensed with, it was off for a couple of black brews with Johnny D in the Gin Palace before we headed out to the Maldron Hotel Tallaght by LUAS to a darts exhibition featuring Dennis Priestley, Terry Jenkins, Vincent van der Voort and Michael van Gerwen. Paul Hinks was flown over too to be main stage MC, with me MCing the other board for free beer and a modest cash fee. As usual with Irish exhibitions, the event started well after its scheduled 9pm slot, but John and I had a great chat with Paul discussing which together with the complimentary pints of Guinness made the time fly by!

Unfortunately the crowd was very small - about 50 people, but the show went on and for the first half, I MC'd Terry Jenkins and Dennis Priestley who played 7 games of 801 pairs, each with a different partner for each leg. Both were in great jovial form - Terry the Goldfish didn't have a clue who I was, as usual, whilst Dennis the Elephant didn't forget, and also definitely played quite a bit quicker than usual.

After the interval, it was decided to just have one board of action, leaving me free to enjoy more refreshing complimentary porter, and have my first ever game with a professional, and not one but two, as it was me and Dennis versus Terry and Joe Bloggs, which the latter won narrowly. I'd say I averaged 45, high scoring with 81!

There was some entertaining needle between Michael van Gerwen and Shane O'Connor, who lives nearby and was a little miffed not to have been one of the featured pros of the night. It is an absolute pain in the hole to listen to Shane wittering on about how good he is, but the self-confidence is admirable and definitely beneficial to his game - I definitely can see him put in a break-through performance in one of the upcoming PDC tournaments.

At the end of the night, there was a raffle and an auction which Dennis MC'd (brilliantly), and myself and Johnny each put in a number of unsuccessful bids, more to boost the charity coffers more than anything. Given the low attendance and high number of free beers enjoyed, I declined organiser Keith's kind offer of payment. Hopefully he gives it another bash, as it was a really enjoyable night and very professionally run - so he just needs to get the marketing right for the next one, and from tonight's acorns many oak trees will grow.

We hung around to play a few legs of darts on the 2nd board and chat with Dennis, then all-a-sudden it was 2.15am and very much time to get a taxi home.

180!!!!

                                  Dennis looking radiant - incredible for a cancer survivor in his 60s.

Contentment :  16 / 25
Excitement :     4 / 10
Memorability :  4.5 / 15

Overall Score : 49% (14th out of 98)