Wednesday, December 30, 2009

A Week Off

Steadier than my walking skills!

No league darts this week as we had a break. Actually I didn't realise we weren't playing and I rushed down on Tuesday night and had a heavy fall in the ice.

Nothing broken, but I'd put that down to the 4 layers I was wearing.
Have a great New Year and we'll be back out on the oche soon. I hope to have a pair of crampons by then. They won't improve the darts, but at least I'll get there in one piece :o)

Friday, December 25, 2009

Darts Corner Catalogue 2010

I've just received the new Darts Corner Catalogue for 2010 and the stock they carry is amazing. I've used their web site before but because I was just searching for the specific items I was interested in I didn't appreciate their full range. For example, I didn't even know that those "real feather" flights were still freely available, but at Darts Corner you get a choice of shape, colour, and 2BA / Qtr Inch threads. Here's an example.

One slight thing they may want to improve upon is to give bulk discounts for flights and stems, because I can't see any sliding scale costs based on quantities as you get with Tommy's Darts, and 10 of my favourite Ruthless R4X flights look a little more expensive with DC than with TD. If I were to order 50 sets it would be a 30% difference unless there is a bulk discount I can't find in the catalogue?

This is a very minor point though, and their product range matches anything I've seen. All of those odd little hard to find things are covered in their catalogue - in detail and with choices. Also, they were one the first companies I noticed to print the specific dimensions of the darts rather than just the weight and tungsten ratio. They handled my last order well and I'll definitely use them again.
Try search words of "shirt" and "trophy" on their site as two quick examples of what they offer, and then try the same search words on other sites. It's the same for those hard to find things I mentioned.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Chelmsford 5 - 5 Shotley Club

We got off to such a strong start last night it really was a disappointment to lose so many of the final games. We took a 4-0 lead by winning the Team and Doubles games, but from that point Shotley raised their game and allowed us just one win in the final six singles games.

The roads have remained treacherous this week, and luckily the trip from Shotley to the Chelmsford is a short one without inclines. I hope the other teams had no problems.

Man of The Match goes to Kris for winning our only Singles match of the night.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Let it Snow

Look at this shameful display of wreckless drink driving in Ebchester. He's all over the shop!

You can see on this film just how little snow is needed before some of our roads become no-go. This shot was taken opposite the church pointing towards The Chelmsford.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

There's a great commentary on this film!

I'm not sure whethere there'll be any darts on Tuesday night, but at the moment Ebchester has come to a stand-still. This is what just 3 inches of snow does to us.



Sunday, December 13, 2009

The Unicorn Eclipse

The Unicorn Eclipse board

Back in August 2008 I blogged about The Unicorn Eclipse dart board. There was feedback received which warned that my poor experiences with The Blade III were due to Winmau's early models of this board.

I've now given the Eclipse board sixteen months of hammer and it still feels like new. There is no deterioration of the bristle, the wires are not damaged, and bounce outs are incredibly rare due to the superb design. I have no complaints whatsover, and I've personally never owned a better board.

The only possible negative point I could raise is that I seldomly play on a board this good in League match play, so maybe I should practice on a poor board at home to simulate the misery of important bounce-outs :o) I know people like Steve D use boards with artificially narrow doubles and trebles to practice on, but if I ever wanted that sort of handicap I'd just put the Blade III back up!

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Shotley Club 4 - 6 Chelmsford

More strange bounce outs on the practice board

We played quite well at Shotley Club last night despite losing the opening Team game. The points were shared evenly though, and we needed to win the last Singles game of the night for a narrow victory.

Man Of The Match goes to Alan, who cranked the scoring up as the night went on and was solid in his Doubles and Singles games. Also, Alan seldom seems to stray away from clean D16 / D8 finishes.

We have no game next Tuesday due to being knocked out of the Team Cup Competition in the first round back in early October. We'll still meet up for a practice night though.

Sunday, December 06, 2009

Barbados Highlights (?!) - Chefette

Fast food?

This was a laugh. All holiday long in Barbados Deb and I were laughing about the "service" we were getting in Barbados. Too cool for school, I suppose.


The Chefette outlet in Bridgetown took the biscuit though. I could't believe how they made 10 customers into a 5 minute queue in a fast food outlet where there were so many staff.

Our server moseyed on over to the serving hatch, then back over to the counter to pick up the cutlery, to then mosey on back to the serving hatch to put it on the tray, to then shuffle back to the counter.
Now I'm not a "process" person, but even I could have saved her a 10 yard trundle there! It was like Resident Evil - you know, when you've only got the knife, but you really want the shotgun :o
)

Be prepared for a very laid back attitude to customers in Barbados. We got great service though from The Ship Inn and Bert's Bar for example, and they got tipped. The rest were about about as pleased with my gratitude as I was with their attitude.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Chelmsford 7 - 3 The Turf

It was the same points haul for us as the Away leg, but this time we shipped points early in the game. We lost the opening 1001x Team Game, which descended into a Double 1 marathon where I think every player had 3 throws to try and put an end to the misery!

The Turf brought a good crew with them and I really enjoyed the night. There were good strings of scoring from Peter (3 consecutive tons) and Kris (5 consecutive 60+ scores) but I'll hold back a Man Of The Match award this week to see if anyone can really grab it next time.

This Saturday's practice will definitely include some work on the small, odd finishes where a Single is needed to get to a double. I never feel I have this nailed and the importance of it was on show in "the marathon".