Older than darts star Luke Littler, 16: iPhone, Tesla, Casino Royale and James Blunt hit
If teenage darts sensation Luke Littler hasn’t already made you feel useless about not following through with your New Year’s resolutions, finding out just how young he is in comparison to the world might.
Yes, we know he’s 16 and just a month away from earning himself a couple of driving lessons, but the PDC World Darts Championship semi-finalist is younger than some of the most famous creations of recent times. Here’s a selection of some of them.
iPhone revolution
The revolutionary iPhone is older than the thrower from Runcorn, with Apple guru Steve Jobs unveiling the device in January 2007, just a fortnight before Littler’s birth.
The company has gone on to add iPads and AirPods to its collection, and leveraged their success with the iPhone to become one of the giants of tech.
Their phone, though, astonishingly came before Littler.
Zidane losing his head(butt)
In the summer of 2006 France superstar Zinedine Zidane retired from football following a World Cup final in which he received a red card for headbutting Italy’s Marco Materazzi.
France would go on to lose the final on penalties and the great midfielder called it a day. It is a World Cup moment which feels like yesterday — unless you’re Littler, whose memory it long precedes.
Daniel Craig’s Bond
One thing the 16-year-old cannot do if he snaps up £500,000 this week at Ally Pally is legally buy a drink. But that’s never been an issue for martini (shaken not stirred) connoisseur James Bond.
Daniel Craig donned the 007 tux in Casino Royale for the first time in 2006, portraying the iconic spy as he showed off during a game of poker – it’s more exciting than it sounds.
There have only been four Bond films since.
Electric dreams
Elon Musk’s rise to stardom/supervillain feels like a 12-month project but his luxury electric car firm, Tesla, is a 2003 creation.
Its sister SpaceX group, which this year launched 96 rockets into orbit, was founded 12 months earlier.
Remarkably, technology many may believe has come in recent years is over two decades old.
To put it Bluntly…
You’re Beautiful… would be a weird thing to say to a stranger at the darts but the iconic James Blunt track marks its 20th birthday next year.
Sure, the song is a little bit creepy but the opening line “my life is brilliant” may be sung on repeat by Littler should he lift the Sid Waddell trophy on Wednesday.
In the red? No
On the topic of dulcet tones, one of the greatest British albums of the 21st century, Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, was released in 2006, a year before Littler was born.
It either represents our warped assumptions surrounding how old things actually are, or we’re all just old.
If Littler loses this week, though, let’s hope his Tears Dry on Their Own in quick time (sorry).
Littler blue bird (latterly known as X)
Ah, the return of that synonym for a bad smell: Musk.
Elon may be hellbent on destroying X at the moment, but Twitter, as it was called until last year, is a long established hellhole of echo chambers.
It was launched in March 2006, just under a year before Littler was born.
Morning Wire
We couldn’t possibly sign off this piece on things that are older than Luke Littler without including ourselves.
Though there are no 16-year-old potential darts champions roaming the corridors, we only just have the age advantage on the thrower, having hit the streets of London for the first time in 2005.