During the gloom-busting elation conjured by Phil “The Power” Taylor's victory over Raymond van Barneveld in the World Grand Prix of darts in Dublin, Sid Waddell had the following advice for the troubled investor: “Buy tungsten.”

A valuable steer there, perhaps, from the Voice of Darts. Certainly Warren Buffett, the legendary American investor, greets an economic downturn by moving money into things that anxious, cash-strapped people are likely to use - chewing gum and sweets, specifically. Darts, you could argue, traditionally holds up well in a recession. Is Buffet a big PDC fan? We're not sure. But if he starts buying shares in Winmau, pile in.

But, then, the economy can learn so much in general from darts. Here's a sport that is built on the virtues of proper and prudent accounting. The ability (which turns out to elude so many of our top money men) to do the basic maths - to see the warning signs of a potential “bogey” number ahead and make the appropriate, split-second adjustment - is everything in darts. If Peter “One Dart” Manley were in charge of HBOS, we wouldn't be in anything like the mess we're in.

Certainly, in terms of entertainment, darts seldom writes a cheque that it can't cash. That said, the appearance, before the Dublin final, of four traditional Irish dancers, though it indubitably added a layer of local colour, provoked fears that the oche would cut up unhelpfully under their booted feet and that it would be Wembley after the American football all over again.

Fortunately, the ground held up, leaving conditions for darts that were as smooth as any that one has seen and meaning that the sole controversy at the Grand Prix related to its unique “start on a double” requirement. Once Dave Lanning had breathlessly billed the final as “darting Star Wars”, it was inevitable that The Power would spend his first five darts failing to hit a score-opening double - darting Red Dwarf, if we're being honest.

But that's the dark magic - you could say the dire risk - of the “double in” format. So great were Van Barneveld's struggles with this trouble-making rubric in the fourth leg of the first set that he managed only one scoring dart in the time it took Taylor to check out, trouser his darts and head off for a drinks break. In the seventh set, finding an initial double was to cost Van Barneveld ten darts.

Now, as a viewer, one is basically in favour of any move, in any sport, that adds variety and ups the competitive ante. But when the consequence is withering embarrassment for the world's greatest players, accompanied by the mild feeling that one is watching an extract from Saturday morning children's television, one has to question the overall wisdom of the decision. Would they introduce a “windmill and clown's head” element on the first green at golf's Masters at Augusta? I suggest not, and darts should probably feel the same way about “double in”.

Elsewhere, and in only marginally less controversial circumstances, we welcomed back Graeme Le Saux. The former England footballer turned brightly smiling match analyst fell out with his bosses at the BBC before the 2006 World Cup finals when they wouldn't let him present Newsnight. (I may be getting the exact details of this dispute a little awry.) But now ITV has snapped him up for international duty, realising that, following the example of Jamie Redknapp on Sky Sports, there is always room on a football punditry panel for someone who looks fresh in a nicely cut suit.

We note with admiration that Le Saux's period away from the sharp end of hindsight-driven analysis included a spell in the “Mr & Mrs” section of Vernon Kaye's Game Show Marathon and another, even more urgent period, as spokesman for the Rwandan mountain gorilla on Extinct, ITV's pro-celebrity conservation special. At which point the hard-working defender was, coincidentally, in the broadcasting wilderness.

A future seemed to be opening up for Le Saux, albeit intermittently, beyond football - to the point where one suspected that the I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! selectors might have had the left back pencilled in for future duties. It seems that they'll have to wait, though, because Le Saux is back in football-oriented employment.

And, as a result of these bold detours, it's a more rounded Le Saux who comes among us to offer his pennyworth on the Lampard-Gerrard debate. It's called “added value” and so many other football pundits could benefit from a similar broadening of their cosy horizons. How many game-show formats has Alan Shearer helped to revive? How many species has Tim Sherwood tried to save? Show us your gorillas, Steve McManaman.