A new madness Wild darts crowds tell us about the future of sport and maybe society too

Let me tell you the moment I realised Boris Johnson was fucked.

- Jonathan Liew

It was late 2021 and there had been some talk about parties in Downing Street during Covid, but in these febrile siloed times, when the entirety of human existence has blurred into a single personalised scrolling feed, who even knows what constitutes "the news" any more? Who knows what fragments of reality ever emerge from Westminster's furiously spinning vortex of unintelligible jargon: prorogue, backstop, Aukus, Slapps? What is a Morgan McSweeney and what time does it start?

But then came the magical night, a few days before Christmas, when the darts crowd turned. As Florian Hempel swept to a routine first-round win against Martin Schindler, Alexandra Palace rocked to strains of "Boris is a cunt". Fans held up signs reading "Work Event", drew pictures of cheese and wine and gleefully held them up to the cameras. And you realise, with a piercing we've-lost-Cronkite clarity: he's fucked.

The wider lesson here, of course, is that you never mess with the darts crowd: a lesson all dart players inevitably learn one way or another. You cannot harness the crowd. You cannot beat the crowd. At best you may be able to manage the crowd. The crowd is wild and untameable, gives and takes its affection with a deliciously wanton promiscuity, and most importantly pays your wages.