BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

(Ganesh, as we all know, is the elephant-headed bon vivant who married a banana tree and invented banana beer, and who writes the history of the universe with a broken tusk. This blog, it is now time to reveal, is merely a chapter in his 993,000 trillion-page epic. People assume 'I' write the blog when, in fact, it is written by a god. The wicked architects of Infantilised Britain might do their damndest to trap the cat of Truth in the hessian sack of Distortion, weigh it down with the half-bricks of Conformity and Cowardice and sling it into the canal of Amnesia. But the cat swims to the surface every time and continues to rattle the dustbin lids of Complacency! In fact, the three years of infancy are nearly up, and cometh the hour, cometh the trunk-faced wondergod: WATCH as Ganesh picks up THE EIGHT HAMMERS OF AVANT-IMPLOSION to batter the MATTER out of the milksops, pop tarts, godbods, pseudo-feds, midden-wives, bunglers, skinjobs and blagstabbers who've swamped London in a quagmire of POST-QUISLING QUACKERY)

But before that, a brief confession. In 1989, I emptied the contents of a can of hairspray into the ether. I did this because we'd just been forced to slave over a school geography project on ozone layer depletion, and I fancied the idea of England's beloved village greens mutating into tropical forests. Of course, if I'd known the result would be a flock of fuckwits taking to the streets in shorts and sandals, I wouldn't have bothered - I can't be blamed for these scum - but on behalf of my former self, I'd like to offer my humble and slightly insincere apologies to all victims of last year's heatwave. If I ever come across a cut-price dirty bomb in a suitcase, I'll let it off in Oxford Street and see if I can blow us all back to a cooler nuclear permafrost.

Now, I know most people spent the post-Xmas period 'taking it easy', pouring themselves delicious cups of mint tea and watching "Woebot TV" - a sort of Experimental Music version of the Royal Faraday Xmas Lectures, only without the complicated formulas or child abuse. Right, hold that thought a second - if somebody told you in 1989 that one day you'd be gazing into a computer screen, watching a man with a television set for a head telling you about rare Italian prog rock, you'd have dismissed it as a sick joke. Anyway, I wasn't doing any of that. I was watching the Embassy World Darts competition, one of the few spurts of genuine pleasure I get every January.

I'm going to assume you're all too 'hip' to pretend you've got a clue about darts, so for your benefit, and for the thousands of foreign readers who flock to this spring of information, here's the score. Every January, the UK hosts this world darts tournament. I think the USA sent someone over once, but it's mainly restricted to the English and the Dutch, plus the odd Welsh or Scottish player. The contest whittles down 32 competitors, to eventually leave two in the final. The loser in the final gets £30,000, while the winner picks up £70,000.

I love darts for a number of reasons. Firstly, despite the odd patriotic comment, it's patently obvious that the players couldn't give a fuck about winning for their countries; they're in it for the money. Sportsmanship? Show me a darts player who praises his opponent and I'll wake you up. I find this preferable to the noxious, jingoistic shit spouted by fans of track and field events ((who remain completely oblivious to the fact that athletics is actually based on punishments meted out to prisoners in Coldbath Fields in the early 19th century)).

Secondly, darts is shot through with occultism. It's math-magic. When the players walk onstage, they instantly morph, as if by lycanthropy, into sinister alter-egos. So, Ted Hankey, happily married Telford-based father of two, becomes 'The Count', a vampiric shapeshifter who often makes his entrance by pelting the baying crowd with rubber bats. Steve Beaton is transformed into 'The Adonis' (imagine a fat bloke in a silk black kimono-style shirt, unbuttoned to just above his navel to display a big gold medallion, a 1989 German rockstar haircut and moustache). Martin Adams is 'The Wolf' or 'Wolfie' (I suppose this is because he's got a beard) - this athlete wears a golden wolf's head on a chain around his neck. Andy Fordham is known as 'The Woolwich Viking', cos he lives in Woolwich and is as fat as fuck - with long hair, a beard, cellulitis and a collection of signed Iron Maiden LPs. And so on.

In darts, the players' nicknames consume them, alter them utterly. Eric Bristow, for instance, was known as 'The Crafty Cockney', and to this day his name is associated with all sorts of chicanery and underhand necromantical tricks. Teenage BTI2007 readers will probably be more familiar with his name in reference to a lewd sexual act, the 'Dirty Bristow', which involves a woman licking a man's back passage while flogging his plonker ((simulate the act and you get a pretty neat Eric Bristow impersonation too)). Bristow's nemesis was 'Jocky Wilson', a hard-drinking Scottish warrior bigot, and when the two clashed, there'd be serious anti-sassenach crowd violence.

Every now and then, you get players who don't adopt names - funnily enough, they never seem to win much. One example is Bobby George, who's Guy Ritchie's wettest East End diamond geezer dream come true. Bobby's spent years doing a bizarre impersonation of a cross between Liberace and Mad Frankie Fraser, blowing kisses to the audience while waving a candelabra around with a gold chain-encrusted forearm, and flashing a rictus grin at anyone who dares 'disrespect him' (ie- ask him why he loses all the fucking time). Bobby's the kind of person who, if he ever played a charity match against a blind 5-year old with leukemia, would still thrash the little blighter 10 sets to nil, just so nobody could ever bring up the fact he'd had his arse whipped AGAIN. Some of the names are downright pathetic, John 'Boy' Walton being a case in point.

Are you still here, reading this? You sad losers! What's your problem? At least I've just discovered I'm a Hindu god, it's some sort of excuse....anyway, last night I watched the final, which was held between Martin 'Wolfie' Adams and Phil 'Nixy' Nixon. 'Nixy' is some old bloke who got made redundant and decided to while away his time as a househusband by learning to play darts, and so, in that schmaltzy UK 'back the underdogs' tradition, everyone wanted him to win. When I say everyone, I obviously mean darts commentator Tony Green ((Jim Bowen's sidekick on Bullseye - yes, the one who used to shout "INNN ONE" - you lazy, post-ironic student bastards)), and possibly Bobby 'Dazzler' George.

I won't waste any time describing the match, suffice to say, Adams came out onstage to Duran Duran's Hungry Like The Wolf, while 'Nixy' shuffled out to the tired and predictable thump of Queen's We Will Rock You. Anyway, "Wolfie" gave "Nixy" the pounding he deserved. Within an hour, "Wolfie" was up 6 sets to nil, with just one to go. The athletes slouched off for a short break and a slug of pale ale. As they came back on, Bobby George was gushing, "THERE AIN'T NO WAY NIXY'S COMIN' BACK FROM THAT...NOT UNLESS 'IS NAME'S 'OUDINI!" The camera panned into the audience and picked up on a little girl, spilling crisps from her mouth. "THAT" deadpanned Tony Green "IS A GIRL...AND SHE'S HUNGRY".

And then, Green says it; the incantation that throws this one-sided massacre of a match into complete chaos. "NIXY...THE PIPES OF PAN GO WITH YOU". And what happens next? Phil Nixon turns around and starts beating "Wolfie" into submission. Suddenly the score's 6-1. Then 6-3. Then 6-5. Then they're even. Tony Green, adept occultist, has dabbled with the match, meaning an entire nation has to suffer another half fucking hour of this spectacle.

"Wolfie"'s wife, close to tears, left the potently charged psychic battleground at 6-6, and locked herself in the toilet. We can only assume that she performed some ritual in the Ladies, because by the time she emerged, the balance of chaos had shifted, and "Wolfie" finished off the boring, runty "Nixy", and was crowned world champion. Of the Embassy World Championships anyway, I think there's some other league, which is probably the 'real' one. But tell me, is there any other sport in the world where witchcraft is deployed so brazenly? Could you imagine Ajax beating Middlesboro 2-0, only for Mick McCarthy to gurn "BORO...THE PIPES OF PAN GO WITH YOU"?? Could you fuck, McCarthy couldn't even finish a sentence in less than nine hours.