THERE’S just no escape from Brexit and all its associated footers and plooters is there? The whole palaver is so crushingly omnipotent, the diarist is convinced he caught a glimpse of himself in a shop window the other day and there was Theresa May hosting his reflection. Apparently, the MPs are revolting. You can say that again. Some of those jowly, braying, spluttering oafs masquerading as politicians sport faces that look more like a tortoise that’s learned to live with the smell of its own flatulence.

By all accounts, the Brexit negotiations are akin to standing with your back to a dartboard, flinging three arrows in succession over your shoulder and hoping you get 180. It’s wing and a prayer stuff. Rather like Stevie Gerrard’s tactics. Unfortunately, it seems the wing is on fire and the prayer has been answered by the devil.

Talking of taking to the oche, there has been salacious shenanigans in the world of darts with the news that Dutch icon Raymond van Barneveld has been caught bombarding two women with smutty-fuelled messages begging for sex and dates. He would probably have more luck pushing through a Brexit deal. Perhaps Van Barneveld should have heeded the pearls of prizeboard wisdom of old Jim Bowen during an episode of Bullseye: “Keep out the black and in the red, nothing in this game for two in a bed”? The married flechettes flinger is now heading for an untidy divorce after claims of his efforts to set up some titillating trysts emerged. “It was sleazy it was horrible,” said one woman who was the object of Van Barneveld’s amorous advances. “He’s the Tiger Woods of darts.” Apparently, Van Barneveld, whose figure is less Adonis more Londis, sent photos of himself lying topless in bed, a revelation which conjures up some deliciously appalling imagery. Not quite Bullseye, more hands over the eyes. The sight of a scantily-clad Van Barneveld would be easier on the eye than the suits the Celtic players sported at Cheltenham, mind you.

*IT’S green for go, go, GO! The 2019 Formula One season gets underway tomorrow at the Australian Grand Prix. All the pre-season flexing of motoring muscles will come to a head in Melbourne or, as the great Murray Walker would say: “If the gloves weren’t off before – and they were – they sure are now.” Murray-isms remain a cherished part of the F1 scene. “I don’t make mistakes,” he once said. “I make prophecies which immediately turn out to be wrong.” Wise words, Murray.

*GIDDY-UP. The diarist has never been a gambling man but took advice from the sports editor on a flutter at the Cheltenham Festival which has been thundering on this week. “It’s a dead cert at 10 to 1,” he cooed. Right enough, it came in at 10 to 1. Unfortunately, all the other cuddies in the race were finished by 12.30. A dead cert? The diarist has seen more life in the Dead Sea.

The Herald:

*POINTLESS puerility part 1278. In these tut-tutting times, when all and sundry get mortally offended by this, that and the other, it’s always refreshing to see a nod-and-wink headline sneak through the barb-wire surrounded censorship of the Po-Faced Police Squad. Willey swings into action? If you checked the sport in brief there was also a titter ye not mention of the coxless pairs. Yes, the diarist has the mind of a 10-year-old ...

*UP for the cup. On this March date in 1872, the first FA Cup final was held at the Kennington Oval between the Wanderers and the Engineers. There were four Scots of worthy standing in the Engineers team, namely Lieutenants Hugh Mitchell, Henry Renny-Tailyour, Herbert Muirhead and Adam Bogle. It sounds just like the lofty lads the diarist has a weekly kickaboot with at the Toryglen pitches. Unfortunately, the Wanderers flung a spanner in the works of the Engineers and won by a single goal to nil. At the time, the Engineers were praised for their use of the Combination Game, a system of passing, teamwork and co-operation. Here in 2019, the Scotland national team are still trying to fathom that concept out.

The Herald:

*THE celebrated, decorated American golfing doyen Dan Jenkins passed away recently at the age of 90. The Texas native was an ever present at the Major championships since 1951 during a long, fulfilling career in the sports writing game which was characterised by his great wisdom, keen analytical eye and a wit that could be as dry as a Temperance Movement meeting in the Atacama Desert. Forth Worth-born Jenkins certainly worked through the best of times in the journalism industry. “The first thing they gave me at Sports Illustrated was a firstclass air card,” he recalled. “And ‘oh, by the way, there’s the petty cash drawer’, they told me. ‘Take a few thousand dollars for expenses’.” Good to see that things have, ahem, not changed one bit in the print business.