Fancy-danning it

Okay, I've hit this checkout before, so it shouldn't be such a big deal but for it to happen on the same day as the 134 checkout - and when I've been moaning about missing doubles - then I just have to give myself a wee pat on the back.

I've seen players attempt this checkout in the local league, and though the title of the post is 'Fancy-danning it', there's a logic to this outshot. Muscle memory . . . don't fucking waste it. 

13-Darter

So I was down to 81 after 9 darts. Don't quote me on this*, but that might be the first time that I have hit three consecutive 140s against the Dart App in a leg. Unfortunately, I buggered up my 10th and 11th darts but I did set myself up for D12 with my 12th dart . . . which I duly hit with my 13th dart. 

Sometimes it all comes together. That's my fourth 13 darter.

140, 140, 140, 57 and a D12 checkout (115.6 average).

* I'm glad you didn't quote me on that, 'cos it turns out I hit three consecutive 140s the last time I hit a 140.

Tasty . . . very, very tasty

Nope, 134 is not a personal high for a checkout but I was on a high after I hit it . . . especially as the D10 went in under the strain of the dreading-D.

I've got in my head now to use the 19s and 17s more for checkouts. It's not necessarily fancy-danning (if that's not a word, it should be) but more a case of relying on muscle memory 'cos of the Dartitis. That's why it made more sense going for two T19s, then going for the D20, as opposed to the more conventional route of T20, T14, D16. Too much switching around, too much chance of me getting inside my head.

I should stick to this outshot for future reference. Park it alongside 146 and 131. IYKYK.

Another shellacking: 88 - 100

Opponent: Computer Level 9

Date Started: 21st January 2026

Date Finished: 2nd February 2026

 

I'm a bit behind with my 2026DartsChallenge updates. Not much to report to be honest, a few 180s (far fewer than this time last year), me whining about my ongoing Dartitis and me suffering beatings at the hands of the Russ Bray Darts App (Level 9).

A few months back I was beating Level 9 quite regularly but I've fallen back again into consecutive defeats once again. I'm sure the Dartitis has played its part (yawn) but, more importantly, it's my piss poor attempts at doubling. I consistently outscore Level 9 - which wasn't always the case - but I can't finish a leg. I have to get my double success above 20% at least, if I'm going to start winning again. 

 

Ironically enough, I think I'm better at hitting doubles in league matches . . . but my mind might just be playing tricks on me.

 

It's probably the surname . . .

. . . they put two and two together and come up with a leprechaun with a set of darts in his hand. Maybe they think my dartitis is me doing the Riverdance?

That's the second time someone at the darts has assumed I'm Irish 'cos of my accent. I wouldn't mind but if you leant out my window and threw a soda bread onto the street there's a strong chance you hit an Irish-American. It turns out Irish-Americans can't fathom accents.

What can I do? Run up a makeshift kilt and wear it with a Tam o' shanter hat every time I walk out the door? With my varicose veins? I'd get sectioned. 

Poor Folk by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Penguin Classics 1846)

 

On the other hand, perhaps she's just a fraud, purposely sending a hungry, feeble child out to dupe people, and thereby making him ill. And what does the poor boy learn from handing out these letters? His heart merely grows hard- ened; he goes around, runs up to people, begging. The people are going about their business, and they have no time. Their hearts are stony; their words are cruel: 'Be off with you! Go away! You won't make a monkey out of me!' That is what he hears from everyone's lips. His child's heart grows hardened, and the poor frightened boy shivers for nothing in the cold, like a little bird that has fallen out of a broken nest. His arms and legs are frozen; he gasps for breath. The next time you see him, he is coughing; it is not long before illness, like some unclean reptile, creeps into his breast, and when you look again, death is already standing over him in some stinking corner somewhere, and there is no way out, no help at hand — there you have his entire life! That's what life can be like! Oh, Varenka, it's so agonizing to hear those words 'For the love of Christ', and to walk on, and give the boy nothing, to say to him: 'God will provide.' Some 'For the love of Christ' are not so bad. (There are various kinds of them, little mother.) Others are long-drawn-out, habitual, studied - a beggar's stock-in-trade; it's not so hard to refrain from giving to one of those — he's an inveterate beggar, one of long stand- ing, a beggar by trade; he's used to it, you think, he'll get over it, he knows how to get over it. But another will be unpractised, coarse, terrible — as today when, just as I was about to take the letter from the boy, a man standing by the fence, who was selecting the people he asked for money, said to me: 'Give me a half-a-copeck, barin, for the love of Christ!' in such a rude, abrupt voice that I shuddered with a sense of terrible emotion, but did not give him a half-copeck: I didn't have one. And then again, there's the fact that rich people don't like the poor to complain of their lot out loud — they say they are causing trouble, being importunate! Yes, poverty is always importunate — perhaps those groans of hunger keep the rich awake!

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

 

Orphans (1998)

 

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (Oxford University Press 1911)

 

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.

It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the “natives” were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two. I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the families on his line.

“He’s looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that’s twenty-four years ago come next February,” Harmon threw out between reminiscent pauses.

I should be bored by now: 81 - 100

Opponent: Computer Level 9

Date Started: 11th January 2026

Date Finished: 21st January 2026

 

One of my worst performances in recent memory. I couldn't even outscore Level 9 this time, then blame it all on missing the doubles. No 180s either in 181 legs of darts. The only crumb of comfort is that I hit three ton-plus checkouts. That's not to be sniffed at.