"The Reid" wrote in message
news:nsb2o2dhen71hq14hj6cbj651qmcupa1i5@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 10:41:21 +0100, Tom Peel
> wrote:
>
>>> so its got planes and banks and is quite near other places.
>>> What are its merits as a destination?
>>
>> I don't know whether you've ever been to Dubai, but it is like Las
>>Vegas with a large beach.
>
> another place I dont plan visiting.
Long ago, when the world was young, and in the halcyon days of my youth, I
had a chance to visit several of the "Gulf Cities". No matter how greatly
they have improved, they hold absolutely no attraction for me for revisit.
Were I young and aggressively pursuing a career in selling iceboxes to
Esquimaux and the like, and my masters dispatched me there to close a deal,
I'd go, but there's not a skysc.r or hotel lobby or "beach" or spa in the
far and formerly pestilential corner of the world, surrounded other than by
water with hordes of benighted citizenry who if they are lucky may achieve -
but seem unlikely to - emergence from the Dark Ages.
Las Vegas is far more convenient and possessed of all the same sort of
overblown amenities, more civilized but with even more ghastly "Tacky"
citizens and visitors, and the back alleys don't reek of unwashed bodies and
camel dung, but other than that, you'd have to be pretty starved for the
capability for self entertainment and enjoyment to spend the time and effort
going.
If I felt compelled to go somewhere to "gamble", a past time for me best
satisfied by an occasional poker game accompanied by good food, plenty of
beverages and a handful of knowledgeable sports fans around a table, I'd
probably pick Reno, but as unattractive and unappealing as are the denizens
of the night who crowd the casinos of Vegas, even worse are those found in
Atlantic City and the grotesque gambling hall in downtown New Orleans. The
next step down the ladder is gambling on an Indian reservation. I'd rather
swab my self with rancid bear fat and eat succotash and spoiled pemmican
than undergo that punishment.
My natural reaction to being convinced to join friends, relatives,
party-goers, conventioneers, etc., in a place like Vegas is to say "Would
somebody please tell me when I'm supposed to be having fun." "Over-blown"
is my best desxcription of almost everything about the place except for
breakfasts which are among the best in the world - a characteristic which
certainly doesn't apply to the lunch and evening buffets, combinations of a
military mess lines and neon lighting factories, absent any distinguishing
flavors, or the "name restaurants", pretentious and awkward, loud and
without determinable couth (combined with silly expensive wine lists and
greasy fat men smoking big seegars)
TMO
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