TV VIEW:SO, HOW'S your new year going? Better than Raymond "Barney" van Barneveld's, we hope. "The year is done: 2010 is already lost to me," he said, two days in to January, after he was beaten by Simon "The Wizard" Whitlock in the semi-finals of the PDC darts World Championships.

Phil “The Power” Taylor had a happier time of it in the semis, pulverising Harry Potter look-a-like Mark “Webby” Webster.

“You were Taylorised, weren’t you,” the Sky man said to Webby after the 6-0 defeat.

“Hmm . . . yeah,” he conceded.

Barney and Webby, then, left Alexandra Place broken men. But, whatever about Webby, Phil had little sympathy for Barney who has been struggling with his diabetes of late.

“You have to play 150 per cent, 200 per cent, every time you walk on that oche,” said Phil, “and sometimes being sick can help you because it takes your mind off your nerves.”

We hadn’t, to be honest, ever looked upon illness in such a positive way, but as a man who was seeking his 15th world title in last night’s final you cannot dismiss Dr Phil’s opinion on anything.

Nor can you just accuse him of bias for telling Sky presenter Dave Clark that the PDC World Championships are vastly superior to the rival BDO World Championships, live and exclusive on the BBC from Frimley Green all week.

In an attempt to be balanced about the whole thing, we dropped in to the first-round BDO battle between Robbie “King Kong” Green and Tony “Silverback” O’Shea, darts’ version of Planet of the Apes. But it didn’t have quite the same razzamatazz. So Phil, as it inevitably proved, was spot on.

But if Barney and Webby suffered disappointing starts to the year, Manchester United’s was positively ideal, with their cannily crafted FA Cup defeat to minnows Leeds – almost scuppered by Michael Owen at the death, but mercifully he battled his instincts and rejected his open goal opportunity – ending any worries about fixture congestion in the weeks and months ahead, leaving them free to focus on the important cups.

They won’t, then, do a Sea The Stars in 2010, greedily grabbing every available title, although one honour the horse missed out on was RTÉ’s The Greatest Irish Sports Person Ever.

Pedants, of course, will argue that a horse isn’t actually a person. No doubt they’d also allege that Mister Ed’s voice was supplied by a human, that he couldn’t actually talk. God love them and their world-weary scepticism.

But hold your horses, so to speak. The Associated Press included Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra in their shortlist for the 2009 Female Athlete of the Year, and between them they have eight legs, compared to the measly two owned by the eventual winner, Serena Williams.

Serena triumphed by 48 lengths (66-18) from Zenyatta, who pipped the two-legged Kim Clijsters by a nose, with Rachel Alexandra trailing miserably back in seventh.

There was a bit of an uproar on the interwebs about the inclusion of horses in a Female Athlete of the Year poll, but in fairness to AP they’ve always counted the beasts as sporty people; Secretariat, for example, came a, eh, respectable 81st in their Top 100 Athletes of the Century list.

RTÉ, though, were much less broadminded, opting to exclude Sea The Stars from the shortlist for the award. They included jockeys and trainers, mind you, which, in our book, would be akin to nominating Pádraig Harrington’s caddy.

We worried, to be honest, that because the voting took place on the webby internets that the results would show a youthful bias – that, say, former Leeds apprentice goalminder Nicky from Westlife would finish ahead of George Best.

We needn’t have fretted at all: two of the first three legends in the top-10 were born in 1917 and 1921, so that was encouraging.

We couldn’t really disagree with the choices, apart from being outraged by Paul McGrath coming only 10th, incensed by Christy Ring being placed only eighth, repulsed by Sonia O’Sullivan having to settle for seventh and infuriated by George Best not even making the top three.

But you know the old saying, “democracy is the right to make the wrong choice”.

We also lost our home having waged it on Brian O’Driscoll finishing first, 2009 being the Grand Slam/European Cup year and all that; Harrington’s success left us living in a snowdrift these past few nights.

In that sense, we can relate to Barney, “the year is done: 2010 is already lost to me”.

True, it’s early days, things, surely, can only get better (and warmer), but it’s been a thoroughly inauspicious beginning.