So, I'm in Vegas. I'm not the gambling type, nor is Mrs Tyranny. We played some slots, came out ahead, but really... gambling doesn't do it for us. That, and we have no idea how most of the games work -- the intricacies, the hand gestures, what to say, etc. We're genuinely clueless about gambling. Intrigued, but clueless. We could have used an old salt for a guide to Vegas.
But we learnt something. Vegas casinos have the most amazing smoke extractors. You can be standing right next to somebody who is smoking and not smell a thing. The smoke dissipates immediately. There is no haze in the air; there is no lingering smell of smoke -- the air quality of the casino floors is the exact same as anywhere else in the hotels where smoking isn't allowed. Ditto for our room, which is a smoking room. It doesn't smell at all of smoke, and we've smoked plenty in this sin bin.
It makes you wonder why this couldn't be replicated anywhere in Britain. Well, I don't wonder. I know why this hasn't happened in Britain. It's because the anti-smokers don't want you to smoke anywhere. The anti-smokers hate smokers first and foremost -- it's never been about the health of non-smokers, because if it were, then Vegas would stand out as a prime example of smoke reduction. The technology to simply eradicate all smoke from the air clearly exists, evidently. And yet in England, Scotland and Wales, businesses owners are not allowed to have extractors nor allowed to let their customers smoke (legally) because Public Health said so, convinced our idiot politicians that people were dying from second-hand smoke. Which isn't true and never was true. So Britons cannot smoke indoors, because the New Inquisition that is Public Health is trying to denormalise smokers.
But smoking is alive and well in Vegas. Because you can -- even the drunk muppets who don't normally smoke are smoking. And casinos have a special exemption from the anti-smoker laws here in Nevada that allow you to smoke on the casino floors -- but not in the restaurants directly adjacent to the casino. Indeed, we ate at a restaurant that was attached to the casino and couldn't smoke at our table, but if we stood up and moved five feet away, we could smoke freely. How absurd is that?
And that's another lesson learnt. Everything anti-smoking / anti-smoker is utterly absurd. We were only a few feet from the restaurant's boundaries and we could smoke. But if we sat down at the table, we couldn't. Madness.
So, that's Vegas for you. Madness on top of madness. We also learnt that Vegas is all about "bling" and "ass" and there is an abundance of both here. It's a visual feast, at the very least.
Also, it's really fucking hot here, and one needs to drink plenty of water. It's been just under 100F (37C) every day we've been here. We were cold and shivering on the day we left England....
Changing the subject ... I've been looking over my blog stats, and I see that the
What We Are Fighting For series of posts aren't particularly popular. I don't know why this is -- and I admit to being enormously disappointed for several reasons. But you live and learn, and you can't know what works and what doesn't unless you try. Your disdain of history being compared to present-day aside, the posts will continue nevertheless whilst I'm on holiday -- because even though it seems you don't like them, it took me days to make them and the bonus comics, the latter I love to bits. So all 17 posts are going to be published anyway, because
I think they're enormously important*, and because I'm stubborn like that, and because this is my blog.
*(I believe there is a great deal to be learnt from reading how Britain once fought against socialism. Maybe you don't, but that would be an error, in my opinion.)
