It is Sunday afternoon. You are probably eating something with gravy or vomiting piteously after a night of cheap alcohol and amusing promiscuity. I am wearing microwavable slippers and watching darts.

My entire knowledge of darts comes from watching Bullseye in 1987 from behind the sofa (see Jim Bowen, fear of) and a game once played during my university freshers week that was abandoned half way through when it became shamefully apparent that I could neither a) make the darts stick anywhere but the wall or b) subtract without pencil and paper. I am therefore surprised to learn that darts appears to have moved on considerably in the last two decades, not least of which because the prize for winning no longer seems to be a brown caravan.

ITV's credits wisely show a shiny titanium dart from the archangel Gabriel's very own Black & Decker Workmate winging its way gracefully through blue flames of celestial plasma and omit all suggestion of the players who are still reassuringly red, round and shiny. Flanked by men in dark suits they enter in a thick swirl of dry ice, pausing only to kiss their uniformly highlighted wives before making their way to the board to the rousing strains of MC Hammer. I decide to lend my support to the player with the least atrocious tattoos. Shiny Man 1 has something in faux Old English script up the inside of this arm which might read quixotic or might read sausages, I can't tell. Shiny Man 2 has POWER in red and yellow flames (or ectoplasm from Ghostbusters the animated series or unset Ice Magic) on the inside of his but eventually I decide that my allegiance must lie with Shiny Man 1, as what I do not know cannot disappoint me. I grab a family bag of Twiglets and sit down to watch.

15.55
Very pleased to discover that the announcement of one hundred and eighty still comes with the obligatory seven second pronunciation of eighty. When the country is 47% smaller thanks to rising sea levels and all of Her Majesty's swans have been eaten by asylum seekers who haven't even heard of Princess Diana, as long as Tony Green is still adding twenty nine extra letters where they are not needed there will be a corner of ludicrousness that is forever Britain.

16.14
The players appear to have come to the end of a round, or a set, or an innings, or whatever it is. The spectators have leapt to their feet and broken into enthusiastic song. The words to this song flash on the giant display that encircles the arena and go like this: DER NER NEH! DER NER NEH! DER NER NER NER NER NER NEH! I look on Wikipedia to see if this is obligatory for either the audience or the game but it does not say.

16.36
Round three is at an end and the game of Shiny Man 1 has collapsed like a flan in a cupboard. I console myself by reading some of the hundreds of messages the audience are waving at the camera.

No Halves! No Shandy!
Happy Birthday Wobbly Arthur!
Stoke! Home of darts!

17.00
I learn that throwing for the bullseye to see who goes first is called a diddle for the middle. This pleases me more than I can decently explain.

17.29
Shiny Man 2 thrice misses the win by one dart. I am hopping about on one foot, shovelling crisps into my mouth without pause. And then, with considerably less ceremony and wholly less 1980s music it is all over and the players receive cheques large enough to keep them and their wives in Argos gold jewellery for at least the next five months.

Darts has not gained another fan. But I am hoping that it this a trend that will eventually lead to the glamourisation of other pub games, preferably starting with nine men's morris and culminating into the spectacular televisation of the first world dwile flonking championships. Without the MC Hammer, obviously.