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Dear BEN,
I have to admit to feeling pretty good at my darts history web site, www.patrickchaplin.com,
being included in the famous Dartoid’s TOP TEN DARTS WEBSITES in your November/December issue.
Proud too to be included amongst some of the more well-known and well-established sites,
such as Cyberdarts, and the more recent sites, such as Sherilyn Herkey’s - The Passionate Darter - and isn’t she just!
My site has taken a lot of my time to research and a great deal of technical work by Sheila
Handley, my splendid webmistress, to create. Since it first appeared in 2000, there have been nearly 40,000 visitors.
Now, with a bit of promotion via this madman’s website and his outpourings published on
other sites and in quality magazines such as BEN which mention me, I hope to see those visitor numbers rocket!
As for Dartoid’s reference to the Puritans playing conkers on the Mayflower and dartboards being made out of hedgehog hair, well those are actually two theories I have not personally expounded. The crazy man just made ’em up. But, hey, why can’t us darters let our imaginations run riot occasionally, just like our chum Dartoid?
But let’s just knock those two old hoary myths on the head. The Puritans never played
darts on board the Mayflower. Dan Peek’s fine research into this has proved otherwise. And, dartboards never were made out of pig bristle, a
misinformed 1930s author thought they were and the myth was created. As for hedgehog hair, well, when was the last time you saw a hairy hedgehog? (Answers on a postcard to Dartoid...)
Dartoid was kind enough to refer to me as a genius. I thank him for that. From my point of view, the praise is reciprocated, with the slight addition of the epithet mad. Even though he is a self-confessed sexist, vulgar scum-bag, I still consider it a privilege to be on the same planet of darts as Dartoid.
Best Wishes,
—Patrick Chaplin
Darts Historian
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