Not for the first time on a Thursday evening, I have found myself tuning into an evening of darts on television. But not, for once, the ‘Premier League’, played out in gigantic arenas all over the British Isles. No, this is the Dubai Duty Free Darts Masters.
For some reason, the crowd is not quite as raucous as it is back in the UK. I have looked carefully as the camera has panned round the audience and it is not clear if any of them are drinking alcohol or not. I have seen what appear to be wine bottles, but most people seem to be drinking Sprite. The “walk on girls” are certainly not as scantily clad as usual and indeed the PDC Darts Dancers aren’t there at all. I am assuming these are concessions to Sharia Law? Still, in a country where there are three times as many men as women, you’d need a sponsor like Kleenex if they saw the coverage we take for granted.
I always thought the whole point of attending large darts tournaments was to get as pissed as possible, but I suppose it would not be the done thing to get absolutely shit-faced in a temporarily converted tennis stadium in a Muslim country and then stagger back to your hotel. And you know what it’s like when you’ve had one over the eight: you start kissing and hugging people and – hey presto! – in Dubai you end up in the nick! Adrian ‘Jackpot’ Lewis in particular ought to watch out, what with his habit of kissing other players after the game. Homosexuality is punishable with the death penalty so that little peck on Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor’s cheek after a particularly tricky encounter could certainly have unfortunate consequences.
Your average PDC event never hears the referee calling ‘best of order’ these days because it’s all a big pantomime. You won’t hear it tonight either because there’s no one to tell to shut up. The commentators are doing their best to make it exciting but without 10,000 drunken men and women it’s just a darts tournament.
The audience does seem to be largely British, though. During advert breaks, the audience gets up and sings along with the wordless bits of Chelsea Dagger and I did not notice too many burkhas or veils on the females present. Perhaps darts hasn’t really caught on yet over there?
I suppose the 250,000 foreign workers living in what ‘Human Rights Watch’ describe as “less than human conditions” won’t be there either, but don’t worry about them. UAE labour minister Ali al-Kaabi said, “Labourers will be allowed to form unions!” which means that soon workers in Dubai will have more rights than in David Cameron’s Britain.
I doubt very much whether your average punter in Dubai will be discussing the darts results tomorrow. We all know that the Dubai Duty Free Darts Masters has nothing whatsoever with the UAE, other than them gaining further international acceptance and by promoting the Emirates. As it’s on ITV 4, I suspect that they’re not succeeding with either of them tonight.
