It saddens me to report that my good friend, Darren "Smoking Gun" Smith died in hospital yesterday morning after suffering a double heart attack the previous evening. He was just 41 years old and the news came totally out of the blue.
Dazza wasn't a prolific poster on blonde, but he was a regular opponent in the Cheeseypoker game in Leighton Buzzard. In fact, he was my arch-nemesis in that game. Nothing gave us greater pleasure than knocking the other one out and the good-natured pisstaking we had in that game has been pretty much a permanent fixture since we first met.
Despite his gruff outward appearance he was a very intelligent person with hidden depths that only became apparent once you got to know him properly. He was also one of those people who placed loyalty to their friends above pretty much everything else. If you needed something, you knew that Dazza would be there to help in whatever way he could.
I've spent the best part of 3 years taking the mickey out of his poker, but he had worked hard on his game and had become a very difficult player to beat in recent months. He mainly played online at relatively low stakes but he did occasionally play some of the festival events in Luton (indeed the photo below was taken from a blonde update of one). He had long since been planning to make a trip to Vegas but, sadly, never made it out there before he died.
Although he wasn't known to most people on blonde, he did make a few posts when he first signed up here. Quite a few of these were related to his plans for my stag weekend in Riga, the worst of which thankfully never saw the light of day. Most of those who went on that trip had never met him before, but I doubt that any of them will forget him in a hurry!
I find it hard to comprehend at the moment that this could happen to someone at such a young age without any warning at all. I'm still half expecting him to come online on MSN to say that it was all a mistake.
Rest in peace, Dazza. I didn't realise how much I was going to miss you until it was too late to tell you.
Sheriff
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