Handbags at Purfleet

Daily Result: £32.26

Sod the day's trading. Today's darts news was all about the Chris Mason v Phil Taylor spat which eventually saw The Power beat Mason 4-0 before threatening to quit the game for good - at which point Mason invited him outside into the Purfleet car park to discuss their differences.

Mason, who proudly claims he used to make bog chains for a living, raised the pre-match temperature by calling Taylor arrogant, patronising and materialistic and generally letting loose in an interview which smacked of sour grapes at the sporting and financial success of the 13 times World Champion.

Taylor replied by easily whitewashing Mason, who, after showing he can be a bit handy when tooled up in a brawl, has served time at Her Majesty's pleasure. In the post match interview Taylor then stunned Sky Sports by threatening to quit the game for good rather than take the kind of verbal abuse Mason was dishing out to him and the crowd both during and after the match. He followed that up by inviting the Sky cameras to follow him upstairs so he could confront Mason on live tv about what he'd said.

Unfortunately Sky declined so Taylor went off on his todd to discuss it with Mason, who promptly tried to check back in to her Majesty's Hotel by asking him outside for a fight in the belief that Taylor tried to "mug him off" with a limp-wristed handshake.

Handbags! And all a bit embarrassing. For the players and the sport. Though love him or loathe him you have to say Taylor had a point on this one with Mason coming out of it all looking a little bit silly. Anyway, if you're interested here's the original Mason interview pre match, here's Taylor threatening to quit the game and here's Mason inviting him into the car park.

After which the days trading was all a bit dull. Considering it's a holiday period I don't seem to have too much spare time for it at the moment but did manage to have another look in on the PDC darts today.

The match I got involved with was the Scholten v Osborne game. Traded it quite cautiously keeping my green pretty well balanced throughout and didn't touch the last set of the match at all. Sure there's many who made a lot more on this game but my aim today, which is my last trading day of the month, was simply to make a small profit, ensure I finished more than £1k up for December (I have a £45 green any result on the South Africa v India 2nd test to see me through that barrier) and not do my nuts in making a stupid loss!

I enjoy watching darts a lot but can't honestly say it's a sport I have the greatest knowledge of. That said I've been impressed by Osborne. Seems to have virtually come from nowhere in the last couple of years and now he's broken the top 32 it wouldn't surprise me to see him go much higher. Would certainly have made an easier job of beating Scholten if he could improve on his doubles.