Gian van Veen denies Gary Anderson in epic to set up final against Luke Littler
It’s barely a couple of years since a 16-year-old Luke Littler and a 21-year-old Gian van Veen came through a 96-player field at Milton Keynes to qualify for the final of the world youth championship.There’s a charming photo of the pair of them with their arms around each other, silly little smiles plastered on to their silly little faces, the cutest high-street haircuts you’ve ever seen.Two kids at the very start of an unforgettable journey.Did either of them foresee, in those sepia-tinted days of August 2023, that the journey would convey them this far, this fast? I reckon Littler did.There’s never been much room for doubt and scepticism in there.
His whole world has been stepping up, throwing a dart and watching it go exactly where he wants it to.Four months later, he would go to Alexandra Palace and change the sport for ever.Van Veen? I’m not so sure.Even when asked last week whether he thought he was ready to play a world championship final, we got an equivocal kind of answer.There is a reason and realism to him.
His whole world has been doubt, misgiving, setback, recalibration, renewal.Belief is evidence of things not seen, and if Van Veen never dreamed of getting this far, perhaps it was because he has learned never to take an achievement for granted until he can physically hold it in his hands.And so, choose your fighter.The swaggering, vaping, 18-year-old god of darts with the crown on his head and the world at his feet.Or the shy, softly-spoken 23-year-old with the degree in aviation engineering and an inferiority complex that has taken him years to shake off.
The born natural with the smooth, flowing action.Or the obsessive dartitis survivor with a throwing hand that looks like a crippled spider.Faith or science; self-confidence or self-knowledge.Littler or Van Veen.They came through their semi-finals in vastly different fashions.
Littler left the stage with barely a bead of sweat on his head after a 6-1 semi-final victory against Ryan Searle, looking vaguely annoyed that he had failed to hit a nine-dart finish.Perhaps this is the only real way of arranging a fair contest these days: Littler v History, Littler v The Nine, Littler v his own astonishing numerical standards.He averaged 105.4, won 20 legs out of 28, averaged more than 100 in every set.Meanwhile Van Veen crumpled with emotion and roared to the heavens after coming through a trial of fire, facing down the Alexandra Palace crowd, the occasion, the weight of history, the pressure, the self-doubt, the great Gary Anderson and the longest game of his life by some distance.
It was a performance of unbelievable character in one of the great world championship semi-finals.Van Veen cruised into a 4-1 lead, converting 12 of his first 15 attempts at double, looking utterly impregnable.Then the 55-year-old Anderson bit back.With the crowd at his heel, he piled in 140s and 180s, threw the house at the young Dutchman, tried everything in his power to rattle him, only for Van Veen to roar back with 180 and 140 against the darts in the deciding leg of the ninth set.Anderson averaged 103, hit 14 maximums, went 46% on his doubles, and lost 6-3.
The fifth set of this match has a fair claim to be one of the greatest seen under this roof.Anderson began it with a 10-darter.Followed it with a 12-darter sealed with a 170 finish.Van Veen responded with an 11-darter, followed by a 12-darter and a 170 finish of his own.Finally he cleaned up the set in a relatively sedate 15 darts, four of which were at double.
This is van Veen at his best: the darts stacked atop each other, not so much cutting through the air as coming in to land,It’s not a natural or instinctive action: the dart rotating at release, the fingers a little askew, the sort of action perhaps liable to break down under pressure,He’s a supreme doubler, the best on the tour by almost three percentage points, but not the most prolific 180 hitter, and he remains totally untested over a best-of-13 format,At times here he seemed to sway a little, occasionally rushing his third dart, the sort of fragility that a player like Littler is supremely equipped to expose,And perhaps this is why Littler remains a clear favourite for Saturday night’s final: that cleanness of vision, a freshness of mind, the sense of inevitability that follows him all the way to that stage.
And there has been a kind of inevitability to Littler all year, as there has been – in a way – ever since he walked cockily on to this stage, to a song nobody over the age of 30 had heard before, and began destroying virtually everybody he met.This is his third world championship final at his third attempt.He’s already won six major titles in the last 12 months.If he retired tomorrow his list of palmarès would already stack up against some of the greats.Of course there are no certainties in sport, as there are no certainties in life.
We know that concepts like fate and destiny are essentially a construct, a pleasant fiction we weave for ourselves.We know this.The problem is that nobody seems to have told Littler yet.
Tension on the streets, the mushroom trial circus and a devastating terrorist attack – looking back on Australia’s turbulent 2025
Fires, floods, murders, a missing child and a massacre – 2025 in Australia brought some of the very worst news.Threaded through the year were themes that persisted from 2024 and will carry on into 2026 – the cost of living, interest rates, immigration debates, the housing crisis, global instability, AI and Aukus.And, of course, the effects of the climate crisis, the battle against it, and the battle against the battle against it.But the year also brought twisty tales, uniquely Australian moments and events that will change the nation for ever.A range of charges were brought under the Australian federal police’s special operation Avalite, targeting antisemitic behaviour
The best films of 2025 … you may not have seen
There’s something almost self-fulfilling about Endless Cookie being an overlooked gem. The crudely animated Canadian documentary, directed by two half-brothers occupying separate worlds between Toronto and Shamattawa First Nation, lives in and finds its voice in the ellipses between typical narrative beats. A fart, a toilet flush, mumbling asides and the squabble of children sharing the same room as Seth Scriver (who is white) he interviews his Indigenous brother Pete are among the overlooked moments that are usually left on a cutting-room floor. But they resonate in Endless Cookie, like life refusing to be silenced in a surrealist self-portraiture that delights in colouring outside the lines. Institutional violence and neglect, intergenerational trauma and over-policing in Indigenous communities are all visible, but often kept at bay
‘I once Bogarted a joint from a Beatle’: Stewart Copeland of the Police
Your 2025 album, Wild Concerto, stars birds and animals as soloists; what animal do you think best represents you, and why?The wolves of the Arctic Circle! Actually, no, no, no – the hyenas of the Skeleton Coast. Hyenas are very cool animals: they’re butt ugly, but they have extremely complex society, they’re very complex vocally, and they’re very strange animals. I don’t know whether I identify with them personally or not. OK, fuck that: let’s go back to the wolf, much more heroic.You’ve been touring your in-conversation show – what is the most common question you get from audiences?Someone always asks me about Spyro [1998 platformer Spyro The Dragon]
From Central Cee to Adolescence: in 2025 British culture had a global moment – but can it last?
Despite funding cuts and shuttered venues, homegrown music, TV, film and, yes, memes have dominated the global zeitgeist over the past 12 years. Now this culture must be future-proofed from the forces of globalisationOn the face of it, British culture looks doomed. Our music industry is now borderline untenable, with grassroots venues shuttering at speed (125 in 2023 alone) and artists unable to afford to play the few that are left; touring has become a loss leader that even established acts must subsidise with other work. Meanwhile, streaming has gutted the value of recorded music, leading to industry contraction at the highest level: earlier this year the UK divisions of Warners and Atlantic – two of our biggest record labels – were effectively subsumed into the US business.In comedy, the Edinburgh fringe – the crucible of modern British standup, sketch and sitcom – is in existential crisis thanks to a dearth of sponsorship and prohibitively high costs for performers
The best songs of 2025 … you may not have heard
There is a sense of deep knowing and calm to Not Offended, the lone song released this year by the Danish-Montenegrin musician (also an earlier graduate of the Copenhagen music school currently producing every interesting alternative pop star). To warmly droning organ that hangs like the last streak of sunlight above a darkening horizon, Milovic assures someone that they haven’t offended her – but her steady Teutonic tenderness, reminiscent of Molly Nilsson or Sophia Kennedy, suggests that their actions weren’t provocative so much as evasive. Strings flutter tentatively as she addresses this person who can’t look life in the eye right now. “I see you clearly,” Milovic sings, as the drums kick in and the strings become full-blooded: a reminder of the ease that letting go can offer. Laura SnapesIn a year that saw the troubling rise of AI-generated slop music, there is something endlessly comforting about a song that can only have been written by a messy, complicated human
The Guide #223: From surprise TV hits to year-defining records – what floated your boats this year
Merry Christmas – and welcome to the last Guide of 2025! After sharing our favourite culture of the year in last week’s edition, we now turn this newsletter over to you, our readers, so you can reveal your own cultural highlights of 2025, including some big series we missed, and some great new musical tips. Enjoy the rest of the holidays and we’ll see you this time next week for the first Guide of 2026!“Get Millie Black (Channel 4), in which Tamara Lawrance gives a powerhouse performance as a loose-cannon detective investigating a case in Jamaica. The settings are a tonic in these dreary months, and the theme song (Ring the Alarm by Shanique Marie) is a belter. But be warned: the content of the final, London-set episode goes to some dark places.” – Richard Hamilton“How good was Dying For Sex! This drama about a terminally ill woman embarking on an erotic odyssey was so funny and sad and true and daring
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