Somebody That I Used To Know.

Darts night is a big thing for our pub - we are in a league with approximately a hundred other pubs in Wales and England, and every year there are regional matches where every pub will play the surrounding pubs in the area to decide who the cream of the pub dart crop is in the UK. The league tables posted on the wall next to the oche are a myriad of colours, numbers and abbreviations, which - while they may look daunting and impenetrable to the uninitiated - hold the key to where the true darting talent lies in the area. So every Monday, the whole pub has to grind to a halt to accommodate the darts league, because it is by far the most consistent revenue stream; we provide some supplementary grub free of charge, as every pub in the league is not obliged but encouraged to do also; almost every pub does because they'll make that money back three or four times over in the increased drinks sales for the night.

So at 8pm on a Monday night, if the team are playing at home, everything stops - the television is zapped into standby, the speakers on the walls are silenced, and the darts boys commence their rituals. At first it merely appears to be a competition as to who can look the most ridiculous - darts shirts galore, grown men positively dripping polyester, as darts cases and numerous performance-related placebos hit the tables.

"See these? They're called Robin Hood X-Tech 9000 Ultraflights - they're 9% straighter than standard flights, and they improve accuracy by several millimetres. They were only £12 for the three." Of course, they then proceed to knacker the flights by shearing them with another dart. I buy darts flights in packs of thirty, which cost me £5. I have been playing darts on-and-off for a year and I'm approximately halfway through the first of the three bags I bought. The initial £30 I spent on all my darts equipment - e.g. my darts and spare flights - is still going strong (even if the same cannot be said for my game; although that said, if you need somebody to hit those 26s, first and every time, I'm very much your man).
"Yeah? Well get a load of these stems - they're made of draft copies of the Bible, signed by Jesus himself. They cost a million pounds each, but apparently stuff that Jesus has touched makes your trebles more consistent." That sort of thing - this ridiculous competition to see who can spend the most money with the least visible benefit. As you may expect, the people who buy the X-Tech 9000 flights and the stems made of papyrus are not only the members of the team who have more money than sense, they are also the members of the team that aren't very good darts players, and would rather piss their money away on faddy gimmicks than actually get down the pub and put the hours in on the board. As with anything worthwhile, you can't buy success, and the same is true of darts. Although the day the "180 every time" darts are invented, somebody will become very, very rich (and then thoroughly despised by all and sundry for tainting the game of darts forever).

So once the team have been allowed adequate time to practice, the opposing team turns up - they are then allowed a brief time to get warmed up before battle commences. The matches are, in order, four singles matches, two doubles matches, and two fours matches; the averages from the previous week's games dictate who plays in which game (the top four scorers from the week before take the singles matches respectively - this way, both teams are playing their strengths and you're playing more or less your "equivalent"). Then some food and drinks, followed by a few friendlies before the away team goes home and the home team winds down with the remaining food and a few games. The points are then telephoned around all the other participating pubs so they can keep their league tables up to date. It's all taken very, very seriously - the whole thing is propped up independently by people who are willing to work to make it happen, so the pubs are equally serious about it. And rightly so. In fact, in the past we have actually had to eject people for the sake of the dart's team - a group of people came to the pub one night and decided to entertain themselves on the dart board; when the dart team asked them to move along so they could prepare for the forthcoming game, the group said no. After a minor fracas, the group were asked to leave; had they failed to comply with the manager's orders, the police would have been called and the group could have been prosecuted.

Darts - serious business.

Well, it turns out - even with Eddie and myself filling in on occasion (it's the least we can do, seeing as we are usually at least indirectly responsible for the debilitating hangovers that have caused team members to drop like flies) - the team's not doing too badly, as we are now seeing other teams turning up from further and further away in an attempt to topple our own home-grown variety of Taylors and Barnevelds, as our boys climb higher and higher in the national ranks. Every Monday a minivan turns up, deposits a load of people into the pub (who, in turn, deposit a few quid into the tills), giving them just enough time to be fed and defeated before piling pack into the van and fucking off back to the village or town from whence they came (which is often even more obscure and tight-knit than this one). Problem number one with this is we are now getting teams over from England, where the smoking ban is still a few weeks into the distance. Many a time we have looked on in horror as an Englishman opens the door and, without thinking, released a cloud of cigarette smoke into the air; they then realize why all eyes are on them and, as if attempting to outrun the smoke, will run back outside with the same gusto they would evoke had they actually been ablaze. The second problem is, a lot of these places are very close communities where everyone not only knows everyone else, but is more often than not related to them somehow, indelibly linked by a genetic chain that cannot be broken (which, from the looks of some of the children they bring with them, doesn't stop them arbitrarily fucking eachother whenever it takes their web-fingered fancy). So sometimes, we get some people who have perhaps not spoken to outsiders in quite some time - to them, we're "city slickers", with our paved roads, motor (as opposed to horse) powered vehicles, running water and our Deoxyribonucleic diversity. Take, for example, the last troupe of dart-slingers to wrestle with our front door (what was once a fault has since become a warning signal - regulars know that the front door handle needs to be depressed fully, to the extent where you are actually exerting a downwards force on the actual door itself, so if you hear somebody engaging in a physical battle with the aging brass mechanism then you know that them folks ain't from round here), the best darters The Baroque Social had to offer (from a town whose name I didn't even attempt to pronounce, named so because it was supposedly the first - and probably only - pub in the whole of Wales to have a harpsichord, a story that I hope is true with every fibre of my being, although I suspect it may be folklore).

At eight o'clock, the Baroque Social's minibus skidded to a halt outside (this place really is blink-and-you-miss-it), and what spewed out onto the pavement was what appeared to be an assortment of children and the lone adult - however, as they each wrestled and struggled with the front door, it became obvious that these were not children we were dealing with - these were just very little adults; quite possibly midgets, if we're being blunt (and I see no reason not to be). Ronnie Corbett could have - and would have - looked down his nose at them. I'm not saying they were freaks or anything, but I had the distinct feeling that it should not be them paying our team subs, but our team paying a fee, much as you would in a circus to look at the bearded lady or gang of dart-playing midgets, who had a faint whiff of stale bread about them and all had strangely wide eyes.

The door was opened once more to allow the normal-sized Snow White of the group to enter the building, but without the traditional struggle; the next person to step through the door was somebody that I never, ever expected to see again - the door squeezed into its ill-prepared frame behind him, providing a fanfare of creaks and clicks to signify the return of one Stephen Ross. Stephen was, of course, the manager of the pub when Eddie and I first started; his departure in 2006 began "the chain" - a period lasting several months in which we became the ultimate latchkey pub; the relief management circuit was built almost exclusively around our pub, with the average relief lasting a week (some lasted two, one lasted a couple of hours before the pub was once again jettisoned into new hands by a fumbling brewery) - which ended with Henry accepting the position as manager. To Henry's - and every other relief's - credit, there was several months of ardent Stephenism to unravel and eradicate before we were converted to more modern practices; Eddie and I thought he was a fantastic manager for the time he was around for one simple reason, and that was because we didn't know any better, and a few months away from kitchen tantrums and dodgy lock-ins soon clued us in to the fact that Stephen was not being penalized by the brewery because he was "too radical for the system, man" (or whichever tired absolution Stephen had culled from the script of Bill & Ted that particular week), he was penalized because he was, in fact, a penis. I know some people will say "oh, yeah, that guy's such a dick", but such off-the-cuff remarks really devalue how much of a raging phallus this man was. People are mixed up for all sorts of reasons, and quite frankly I never want to know the chain of events that led to Stephen Ross' screws becoming as loose as they were - maybe it was years and years of not-quite-right or one gigantic burst of what-in-the-name-of-shitting-Christ, either way, by the end he lived a truly bizarre existence; a few hours in the kitchen screaming and yelling because the pasta was ever-so-slightly cold, followed by four hours of sleep, followed by a ten-hour walk, followed by an hour's sleep, followed by a game of football and God knows what else. The guy was a maniac, but while some maniacs are good fun, he was the kind of maniac that would wait for you outside in his Jeep and mow you down because you used all the Oxo cubes. That kind of maniac.

Even though it had only been six months since I had last seen Stephen, I was slightly thrown by how little he had changed - Stephen's trademark was his dense mop of black hair, which still ventured south of his eyebrows if he wasn't careful. And when his fringe would overstep the boundary, Stephen would shoot a huff of air upwards, blowing the unruly strands back into position; I had forgotten how irritating the PFFFFTs were when attempting to talk to him. He sauntered up to the bar, and I briefly wondered if he'd remember me - he would often disappear upstairs for weeks at a time; while Henry does the same, that is because he can no longer smoke downstairs; he is still running the place from the telephone. Stephen would vanish for weeks at a time, to the point where it would often be my responsibility to lock up, take the tills upstairs and all sorts of stuff that really shouldn't be entrusted to anybody who has only been in the job a month. But no, he remembered me, and seemed genuinely pleased to see me.

"Can I have a -"
"Vodka and lemonade with a dash of blackcurrant?" My ability to remember his usual was not, as he almost certainly presumed, a subtle testament to his undying legacy; it was, however, a flashback of rockier seas, much as war veterans will remember the bullet that hit them and politicians can never shake the image of the farmer who egged them (incidentally, just to stray from the topic a second, I am glad to see that most of the major news stations have used Blair's resignation as an excuse to give the Prescott-Farmer punchout footage another airing - I, for one, believe that no excuse should be needed to give the footage a day out; slow news days are often filled with stories of school children who have put together a pasta picture of a dictator or Christ knows what else, when in fact such trivialities pale in comparison to the then-deputy prime minister having an egg thrown at him and responding with the left-hook of doom). As I began to beckon the other drinks for Stephen's pint-sized posse (who, ironically, were mostly drinking halves - I suppose it makes sense; if you're half the size of everyone else you only need half the booze), I decided to strike up a bit of conversation; considering I hadn't seen him for six months I thought there would be at least some sparse catching up to do.
"So are you still managing pubs?"
"Oh yes." This came as a surprise to me - after all, towards the end of his tenure here, I was of the impression that Steve was so sick of running pubs that he would snap at any minute and petrolbomb the place, just bring it to a pile of rubble and be done with it. "I'm running The Baroque Social." This actually made sense; he didn't match the rest of them and judging from how some of the practice shots were going in his absence, he had probably started the team himself.
"That's a surprise, Stephen."
"Why?"
"It's just that I thought you were getting out of the business altogether when you left here."
"The best thing you can do is just get back on the horse." I've always hated that expression - tell that shit to Christopher Reeve's grieving widow and bankrupt stable keeper. "So I got out of this company and moved on to Blue Prince." For the few of you that aren't familiar with the mind-boggling intricacies of the Welsh brewery trade, Blue Prince is considered the "anti-brewery", in that they're everything this company isn't - they have wastage allowances, they're cheap, they provide healthcare for their staff and decent amounts of holidays. But where, I ask, is the fun in that? Half the fun of this job is having to fight tooth and nail for every little thing, be it getting time off that you actually booked months in advance, or being expected to train new members of staff on procedures and policies in which you yourself have not been educated.

"We had some good times though, didn't we?" He said this with a straight face so I decided to suppress my body's natural urge to squeeze out a rueful, sarcastic chuckle.
"Well..."
"Tell you what, if you're getting tired of working in this shithole, here's my number." Stephen loaded up the drinks tray, handed me a business card and went back to his table - however, halfway there, he balanced the tray on one hand, freeing the other hand to make the "call me" gesture with his thumb in his ear, his first three fingers contracted, and his pinkie acting as a fleshy mouthpiece for this hypothetical phonecall, one that I can assure you will not be happening.

Stephen went back over to see how his seven dwarves were doing, and it turns out they weren't doing too well - the problem was, they had practiced hitting treble 19 (which, for those unfamiliar with the layout of a dartboard - and if so, why? - is just left of six o'clock) instead of the more conventional treble 20 (which is at twelve o'clock), because it was obvious that their reach would not permit them to retrieve a set of darts planted into the treble 20. However, the pressure had obviously gotten to them - their more usual fare of whistling while they work and mining for diamonds was obviously a far less stressful game, as their game had gone to shit. The first few matches were almost painful to watch; our team wrapped up in about 12-15 darts, hitting the winning double long before Sleepy or Grumpy had chalked up so much as 100. Of course, all eyes were then on Stephen, whose blood would be quite obviously boiling underneath the facade of good sportsmanship. Stephen is a terrible loser - this was evident from his days in the kitchen; if he didn't get that macaroni out of the kitchen in five minutes flat he'd be furious. Plus, there were other factors at play, namely the fact that when he was here, Stephen attempted to stage a coo to become captain of the darts team - if you're thinking "wow, that sounds pathetic", then you're spot on, because pathetic was too kind a word for the perfectly piteous attempt at dislodging Dave from his position as captain of the darts team.

Stephen originally let us in on his plans in a team meeting (Stephen was a big fan of trivial meetings; we were famously robbed of a few grand's worth of stock, the waitress didn't know about it until I jokingly told her of Stephen's incompetence regarding the matter; Stephen's approach with actual serious matters was "best just leave it") - Stephen would practice feverishly for a solid month, and it was our job to gauge David's approval rating and, in Stephen's own words, "augmentate [sic] the cracks in his regime". Not meaning to cause a fuss, we all had a go at the anti-David propaganda, but it was no use - Dave was (and still is) a good bloke and an even better dart player, and save for one or two half-hearted questions to the rest of the team regarding Dave's performance, we couldn't bring ourselves to go along with Stephen's evil plan. Stephen's plan B involved taking the bulb out of the light above the dartboard whenever Dave was coming, so that he would eventually fall out of practice and become sloppy. This plan also fell on its arse because it didn't take into account that the dartboard is in front of a very large window that faces the sun, and Dave never practiced at night. Stephen also failed to remember the dartboard in David's front room. So it was really no surprise that Stephen was leading the Baroque Social's team, but all eyes were on him - David had since heard about the attempt on his position and was interested to see just how much better things would have been under Stephen's rule. Not much, from the looks of it, as the elves were throwing consistently poor darts - I did wonder if the midgets had been corralled by Stephen against their will; I can't imagine midgets could put up much of a fight. They certainly couldn't attempt to break free of their averagely-sized oppressor, as it's a long walk home to their pub with those little legs and I doubt any of them could drive a car that wasn't pre-owned by a clown college.

The first match was almost painful to watch; as Stephen squared off against David - you couldn't get served if you tried in the ninety seconds it took David to whittle 501 down to a double 16, and while Stephen was all smiles and shook David's hand, there was a definite unease to the whole thing. It wasn't exactly subtle from where I was standing, so I can only imagine what it must have felt like out in the thick of it, because you could have cut the tension with a knife (or a dart, as David did with a well-placed stab into the green). The tension, however, turned to a mild sense of embarrassment - the Baroque Social's team stepped up and were one by one sent packing. We were ahead by five points to nil by the time the first doubles match reached its conclusion.

"Shall we go ahead with the rest of the games?" asked David; in the event of formalities such as this it's always polite to at least offer a bit of mercy.
"Yeah, why wouldn't we?" Stephen was clearly on the defensive to the point where he hadn't even realized...
"It's just that you lot are behind five points and can't possibly win."
"Right." And there it is - the blowing of the hair out of his face that means one thing; Stephen is not a happy chap and somebody else is about to pay handsomely for his shortcomings.

We decided at that point to go ahead and bring the food out - maybe a bit of food would quell the rising air of hostility. It's a proven method of conflict resolution - the Iran hostage thing could have been over in a heartbeat had a few plates of sausages, onions, buttered bread and chips been rolled out. As both teams sat down, the air still wasn't exactly clear - ever the bastion of good sportsmanship, Stephen refused to engage the home team. We tried everything - we turned the telly back on, cranked the music up, but the two sides were still in battle mode. Actually, it wasn't even the sides; it was Stephen. After a few minutes (that dragged so slowly you could practically feel yourself aging), the Doc of the midget team piped up.

"Well, it's not the winning that counts I suppose. Shall we just play on for the fun of it?"
I don't think anybody could have predicted Stephen's response - he picked up a clump of fried onions in his hand and squeezed them as hard as he could, his rage so insatiable at this point that he was left little discourse; what man among us can truly say he has never reached the boiling point where you're so gosh-darned livid that your only chance at bringing your blood pressure down into treble figures is to squeeze a fistful of fried onions? Stephen had reached this point, his teeth clenched and a deep, seismic gurgle bubbling up from his throat. He then decided to throw the onions at Doc; to Doc's credit, he appeared entirely unphased by all this. He was clearly a man who had experienced the hot, oily sensation of being doused in a fried-onion rage before.

"We could play on for the fucking fun of it Trevor, or we could just pack you fucking cunts back off to the pub and just fucking forget about the whole fucking... fuck!" Ah yes, stage two of the onion rage - incomprehensible swearing. Although we couldn't see Stephen for the air's sudden blue hue, we could certainly hear him well enough.
"I put a lot of fucking effort into this fucking darts team and here I am, five nil down to a pack of fucking -"
"You lost your game as well Stephen," began Doc; it was a fair point, Stephen had been humiliated just as badly as his Tolkien-esque brethren. "It's really just a bit of -"
"A bit of what? You fucking midgets are all the fucking same... and what are you fucking fuckers looking at, eh? Fucking..." Yeah, that's it Stephen; midgets in general simply can't be trusted to defeat a national-competition level darts team.

The room went into a stunned silence (while I secretly thanked Henry for being too cheap to provide anything but nice, non-lethal plastic cutlery for the darts team) - as Stephen's neck began to push veins to the surface that were such an outrageous shade of purple that I wondered how long it would be before he popped entirely, the entire room went into a state of disbelief; here we were, watching an old landlord berate a team of dart-playing midgets. A sentence that no rational person should ever have to say or type, but a situation that certainly didn't seem funny at the time. David offered to drive the midgets home, and they all threw down their darts in disgust and piled into the minivan; Stephen continued shouting at them outside and up the road as far as he could run. Unfortunately for him, a minivan moves pretty quickly, even when it's full of midgets. He returned to a pub that was still in a state of shock. He also returned to see one extra person standing behind the bar; Henry. Henry had heard the ruckus from upstairs and came down with a very specific purpose in mind.

"Oh, so is this it mate?" Stephen said, leering at me; I could tell that my sausage-fingered invite to 'call him' had just been revoked, possibly for good. You can imagine my disappointment. "You've gone and called the fucking "man" on me?" I feel I must explain that Stephen had more issues with "the man" than David Bowie and the Rolling Stones combined, whatever form "the man" may take; be it the police who simply came around to see if the pub was having any trouble, to Dickie Dixon complaining about the state of the cask ales, "the man" was out to get him at all times; he was never wrong, of course, so he obviously felt perfectly justified in telling me off for no reason. It felt just like the old days.
"Actually, he didn't do anything of the sort, I heard you from upstairs. Out." For Henry to be awoken when you're shouting in his ear is a rare occurrence in itself - to be awoken by something happening downstairs meant that Stephen's outburst probably charted on the Richter scale.
"Fuck off old man, this is none of your business."
"I'm making it my business - I've asked you to leave, I suggest you do so."
"Oh yeah?" Stephen stood up and looked Henry square in the eye. "And what, precisely, are you going to do, Father Time?"

Although I am not entirely sure, I assume we will be awarded the points for the match by default - I'm sure that the opposition's captain being arrested constitutes a forfeit.

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(This entry is dedicated to Aereogramme).