1. THE BUFFETS
I love food. The taste, the texture, the smell. Most of all, I love the quantity. I’m not a fat man but I plan to be. |
Not tubby, portly or big-boned either. My goal is cut-me-out-of-the-house-while-filming-me-for-Channel-5 fat.
The only buffets I’m used to are the rancid Chinese all-you-can-eats in the UK. Comparing a Vegas buffet to ‘Noodle In The Haystack’ on the High Street is unfair, like putting Vladimir Klitschko in the ring with a wet dog. We queued for 20 minutes TO GET IN. Like a theme park, excitement built as we moved towards the front of the queue, eagerly nudging each other as punters staggered out looking shellshocked and bereft of their faculties.
“Did you see him? He looked close to puking!”
“I know! This place is gonna be awesome!”I went off to fill my first plate and got lost on the way back. Ended up hanging out with some American chap near the cakes who said he was ‘losing his fucking mind’ in this joint.
When you’re full to the gullet with grease and guilt, it’s time to carry on eating. After all, you’ve only had 3 plates and you haven’t visited the deep fried fat fuck face section yet.
So you haul yourself back to the counters, wiping chicken skin and cornflakes away from your tear-stained chins, like a shell-shocked veteran being called back for one last tour of duty. 
“Breakfast pizza? But that’s ridiculous!” you loudly exclaim to no-one in particular, as you slide 4 slices of the shit onto your creaking plate, more to hide the kung-pow chicken and lasagne that you’re eating at 10am than anything.
In the midst of the madness I noticed one man stood still, quietly waiting, his plate empty. Who was this maverick? Like the girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List, I couldn’t take my eyes off this pioneer, this beacon of hope.He was the shape and size of something massive. But calm and static. At least his body was. As my gaze moved up to his sizeable bonce, I could see his lips and tongue were salivating like a faulty prison shower head. This man was on to something.
I formed a queue behind him. I could smell what I thought was bbq chicken. Or was it his arse?
The guy behind the counter eventually brought out some deep-fried crap fritters the size of my head and I went to sit down and think about what I’d done.
(The crab fritters were lovely.)
2. GAMBLING
Going to Vegas and not gambling would be like going to
Faliraki and not getting a disease. It’s
what the place is built on, along with sand and loads of murders.The Casinos care about your welfare too, proven by the sign ‘1-800-GAMBLE-AWARE’ placed prominently at knee-level in the darkest corner of the place.
If you don’t know what you’re doing but want to pretend you’re Bond in Casino Royale, you need to get yourself on the $5 blackjack tables that are advertised everywhere. Problem is, there’s hardly any of them so when you do find one it’s surrounded by desperate, clueless punters like yourself, all waiting for one of the players to run out of chips, which never happens because they’re cheap as, erm, you know...chips.
Sorry.
So you end up nervously approaching the $10 table knowing that you could be out within a minute and quietly hoping you can sit next to the guy with the ten gallon hat. Generally the atmosphere is jovial and friendly although one gentleman became quite agitated with my cavalier and uneducated style and decided to bow out of our game while muttering several expletives.
Tit.
3. FREE DRINKS
“Ooh, if you’re gambling they give you free drinks in
Vegas!”This is true if you’re American and accordingly drink at an amateurs pace. If you’re British you’ll be much more accustomed to necking your second while ordering your third, to maximise the time available to talk utter horse bollocks.
No doubt if you’re a high roller at the $1000 roulette wheel
you can fill yourself up on fine cognac, but if you’re 65% scumbag like me
you’ll end up sitting at the 25 cents video poker, craning your neck to get the
waitresses attention like a meercat with ADHD.
You place your order and then the real game begins. Can I make this game last till the waitress
returns with my beverage? I’ve done some
awful things to fill this window from classic sporting stall tactics (tying my
laces, faking cramp) to actually spunking another $50 away in order to claim my
‘free’ drink.It’s a false economy folks. Almost as if the multi-billion dollar casinos are smart to it.
4. HOTELS
Nothing can prepare you for the size of the hotels in
Vegas. Our car pulled up outside and I
felt like Obi-Wan Kenobi when he first sees the Death Star.
“That isn’t a star!
That’s the MGM Grand!’(By the way, don’t try and be all Motley Crue and book a limo from the airport to the strip like we did. It’s about 3 minutes away.)
We checked in and were given our room keys and a map. Not of the surrounding area, but so we could find our room. We got lost and asked someone who told us we were now in the wrong hotel.
In the end we parked our suitcases at a bar and decided to
order a drink. The guy next to me was
drinking this mammoth glass of beer so I asked him what it was in my
quintessentially English voice that I adopt when speaking to Americans.
“Excuse me good sir!
Could you, pray tell, inform me as to whether the receptacle you are
enjoying said beverage from is indeed a litre or perchance a two pint glass?”He looked at me like I was E.T. and shouted in my face, “THAT’S A BIG ASS MOTHERFUCKER, THAT’S WHAT THAT IS!”
“Two of those please, barman...”
5. THE DESERT
It’s easy to forget just where you are when in Vegas. It’s hot and sunny so you need to wear
suncream.YOU’RE IN THE DESERT, REMEMBER?
Don’t walk down the strip without suncream on. Don’t stay in the desert sun for 3 hours with nothing to cover your balding head. Don’t drink $3 daquiri’s while proclaiming, ‘God, it’s lovely and warm here, isn’t it?’
THAT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE IN THE FUCKING DESERT.
As a Brit I decided to ignore all the evidence of this around me and rather than cover up, simply take on the midday desert sun. I’m not sure who won, but I had plenty of time to ponder this thought as I spent the evening refereeing a new contest to see which end of my body could project the most fluid.
DESERT ONE, HUMAN NIL.
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