It’s been almost three weeks since I got back from Vegas. But I haven’t been able to talk about it until now. It was too upsetting. And that niggling worry I had that I might be a bit too fey, a bit too indie for Vegas? All turned out to be bollocks. Vegas is amazing. The stuff of dreams.

I was very bitter about coming back. Very bitter. I sulked throughout the flight home, scowled when the pilot informed us cheerily that it was “a balmy sixteen degrees in London today”. And, when I got home and Hotel Boyfriend kept up a steady stream of tea and sandwiches to help me through my horrendous jetlag, I accepted it all with shamefully bad grace.

“I suppose you don’t even like your present!” I shot at him.

“Well, it’s not that I don’t like stuffed gibbons,” he began. It’s just that he’s never in his life ever expressed an interest in gibbons, stuffed or otherwise. Ungrateful wretch that he is.

“And I bet you think the little plastic slot machine that gives you M&Ms when you pull the lever is a piece of crap, too,” I moaned.

This statement he agreed with. As I knew he would. He didn’t understand. No one understood.

Except my Vegas brethren.

My friend E and I met up at lunchtimes to wander through London, waving our arms around dejectedly at the general unVegasness of it all.

“And this, you see?” One of us might say, pointing at a shop. “That’s not Vegas. And this,” we’d indicate a bin. “Not Vegas. Also this –“ the sky, a dog poo, a pigeon, a man in a coat. It wouldn’t really matter. A kind of madness would take us. “Rubbish,” we’d tell each other. “It’s all rubbish.”

Let me ‘splain. Let’s take an average weekend day you or I might have at home, and compare it to the kind of weekdays we had enjoyed in The City of Lights.

WAKING UP – HOME
You wake up in your average sized bed in your average sized bedroom. You make yourself some coffee, look out of the window, and think about leaving the house.

WAKING UP – VEGAS
You wake up in your ENORMOUS COMFORTABLE bed in your ENORMOUS COMFORTABLE bedroom. You mumble into the phone and someone BRINGS YOU coffee. You look out of the window. There it is. THE STRIP, glittering at you. Fuck it, you think. Vegas is open 24 hours a day. You go back to sleep.

BREAKFAST – HOME
You walk 100 yards to the corner shop. On the way you might see a couple of cats, whom you might pet, and some hoodies, whom you mightn’t. You buy the paper and take it home, read it in the kitchen while eating a bowl of cereal.

BREAKFAST – VEGAS
You walk 100 yards to the MGM Grand. On the way you might see some REAL FUCKING LIONS. You eat breakfast in the Rainforest Café, which is in an ANIMATRONIC RAINFOREST. The kind people there, all dressed as safari guides, bring you EGGS BENEDICT and UNLIMITED COFFEE while you watch SHOOTING STARS overhead and listen to THUNDER and the TRUMPETING OF ELEPHANTS. Papers shmapers. Who need news when you have Vegas?

AFTERNOON – HOME
You get the bus to your local shops, buy some groceries, some clothes. You come home and slowly get ready for your evening out – dressing, surfing the internet, watching TV, etc.

AFTERNOON – VEGAS
You get a GONDOLA to the mall, while the GONDOLIER sings OPERA at you. You get some ICE CREAM and wander round FENDI, DIOR and so on, pretending to be snooty and rich. Then you run to Gap and H&M and buy lots of scarves and earrings. Then you go back to your hotel room (which has been CLEANED, as if by MAGIC), get dressed while DRINKING CHAMPAGNE and EATING SWEETS and watching Law & Order. Once you’re dressed all fancy, obviously, you GET BACK INTO BED (or, preferably, one of your friends’ beds) and GO TO SLEEP. After all, it’s 3am for you.

EVENING – HOME
Any number of options. You might go to a gig, a comedy show, a party, a restaurant, a movie. By 3am you’re usually back home and in bed.

EVENING – VEGAS
Any number of options. You might go to the BELLAGIO and watch the MUSICAL FOUNTAINS, you might go to a MAGIC SHOW with WHITE LIONS in it, you might see the TOPLESS LADIES of the foe-lee bur-jaire, you might drink CHAMPAGNE and go on a HELICOPTER RIDE OVER THE STRIP (and you might fall out of the helicopter while disembarking), you might go to Fremont Street to watch the LIGHTSHOW. Or to New York New York to drink YARDS OF MARGARITAS and watch the DUELLING PIANOS. Then you’ll go back at YOUR OWN HOTEL/CASINO. You’ll have been kicked off the Blackjack tables because you can’t count up to 21 quickly enough (but you will have SAT NEXT TO proper Vegas-looking men wearing proper scary signet rings). And you’ll also probably have made $500 ON THE SLOT MACHINES (they bring you FREE DRINKS while you do, you know). By 3am you’ll be firmly installed at the bar drinking CHAMPAGNE, talking to HOOKERS and UNSUSPECTING YOUNG MEN from WASHINGTON STATE. At 7am you’ll generally decide to go to bed. And then to do it ALL OVER AGAIN.

You see? YOU SEE? You see why everything’s rubbish in comparison?

Of course you don’t. You don’t understand. No one understands. Sigh…