The New Year

New Year, for me, inevitably conjures images of a smiling Phil Taylor. I will grudgingly admit the man is a class apart in terms of darts prowess, but I can’t stand the man and it always gets my year off on the wrong foot.

The 2010 edition of the PT show contained all the usual irritants:

• Ludicrous over the top montages from Sky. One even featured an African witch doctor loudly proclaiming from the top of a London building the arrival of the king, at the end of which, Taylor waddles into shot.
• The Sky commentary team spending the duration of any given Taylor match with their noses firmly up PT’s backside, even if the opponent is averaging 83. - Taylor talking about himself in the third person. “You’re going to see a fully fired up Phil Taylor tonight”
• Taylor fake modesty. “The thing you’ve got to remember is that (insert ageing D list pro/ qualifier) is a top, top player and I had to be on the absolute peak of my game to beat him” This after he has beaten said opponent 4-0 where opponent won one leg.
• Celebrity name dropping. Phil can’t help himself on this one – every post match interview will feature at least one celebrity name that Taylor either wants to inform us that he knows, or otherwise that he would like to meet. It’s as if he has a little script in his head: Mention Ronnie O’Sullivan/David Haye. If can’t squeeze them in then default to John Lowe (who is always watching from a bar in Tenerife/Lanzarote/Cyprus).

A great, great player, but I wish he’d change his on screen demeanor.

Shazbo works as a producer for Sky, and unfortunately I think she is tiring of the endless list of demands I put to her. On top of toning down the Taylor montages and removal of the darts commentary team I have also recently requested:

• Removal of Jamie Redknapp as football pundit

• Removal of strobe advertising hoardings

• Introduction of clause that football analysts on Soccer Saturday must be able to construct lucid sentences, thus saving me from the babblings of Merson and Parlour (“the keeper could have come for that. He never, and the ball ended in the net”)

I have also requested that I have a back stage pass in the political debate on Sky when the three main party leaders debate ahead of the election, so I can give Brown, Harmon and Milliband a piece of my mind.

Thus far all requests have been rejected :(

On the poker front, obviously it was a roaring finish to the year with a 13k upswing in the final couple of months to end the year in profit for the 4th successive year.

I have to say though, that I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm for poker – it used to drive me through the week as the thing to look forward to at weekends or the evenings, but now I just see it as an occasional pastime. This is no bad thing, but will probably mean I play less in 2010. I want to focus on saving for a house, so the bankroll is a fair bit lighter going into the coming year, so a Vegas trip will very much depend on how things go. The guys have lined up trips in March and November, so hopefully I can build up enough spare cash to make it out there on at least one of those occasions.

Thursday, 7 January 2010