I was born in and grew up above a lively and friendly public house in Camden, North London. In it, I had access to a steady stream of characters, some sober, some not, who generated an astonishing amount of colour into the early and formative part of my life. As a child, I would come home from school at half past four in the afternoon, satchel round my shoulder and enter my home via the public bar. As I made a beeline for the door (next to the crisps) marked ‘private’, I would invariably be sucked into a chat with a pensioner or a builder or a taxi driver; take your pick. At that moment I would be entreated to regale them with tales about what I’d learnt from school that day. I remember being roundly, but warmly, lambasted for having English lessons, given that I could clearly already speak the language.
Invariably, however, the great tales being regaled were coming from them. As a child, I suspect I was a somewhat unthreatening figure to whom the most revealing and emotive things could be said. And given this was a public house, the various tipples my father had on sale doubtless helped loosen their tongues and lengthen their memories. Given my parents are from the Republic of Ireland, Sir Robert Peel public house had a slightly Irish skew, though in fact the clientele was a fairly authentic cross-section of the London public.
I was the recipient of endless pieces of advice about the philosophy of life – what’s important, what’s not, what mistakes not to make and what mistakes to make. Pubs are reflective places, where people put their tools down and leave their troubles at the door. It’s a haven from all of life’s sharpness, even though it may be the very thing responsible for some of life’s sharpness too. It’s an environment in which to wax lyrical, escape, and, of course, to dream. So to be a bystander to all of this was not only a great privilege but rather addictive. Myself and my brother and my two sisters had access to a whole world downstairs, beneath our home. In fact downstairs was home as well; it was just a bit smokier. And I don’t know what it is about pubs, but you seem to get the best ‘characters’ in them. I’m not sure what defines a ‘character’; you will have your own definition. But we can probably agree it’s someone who has something about them that is so unique and quirky and a bit dysfunctional, that makes them both engaging and perhaps amusing. There are plenty in showbusiness; it’s a haven for oddballs, but it’s often hard to judge how genuine their quirkiness it is, and how much of it is a career move. But in any pub in the land, like the one down the road from where you are right now, there will be one or two people in there that are just different. Tragic, funny, insanely clever, weird, rude or, if you’re damn lucky, all of the above.
And while I find every person interesting – much to the opprobrium of anyone who happens to be with me when I’m getting on a bus, buying a coffee or just walking down the street – clearly there are those splendid few who have that certain something that turns our heads; something that makes you listen up, and that sometimes makes you want to run away. On one of my many flights recently, this occurred to me. I am doing now, what I did then, when I was seven years old. I am mooching around the place, looking for interesting people, keeping my mouth shut and letting them tell me their stories. I couldn’t tell you now, and I couldn’t tell you when I started the journeys, precisely how it’s done. I only know that my approach is to keep an open mind and hesitate to judge for as long as possible. And to see the best in people wherever possible. The World’s…and Me television series is a souped-up version of those early childhood journeys I made around the saloon bar of Sir Robert Peel pub. Then, as now, meeting a new person was like opening the first page of a new book. You are engaged enough to pick it up, but have no idea how it will play out. This I find immeasurably exciting, and it’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. My life became my job for a while, which is cool. Now, with your help, and with the glorious power of hindsight, I’m going to go back there, to revisit these people and these places, and to look again. With fresh eyes, and without the jetlag. I sincerely hope you enjoy the ride. First stop, Vegas…
CHAPTER 1 The World’s Most Enhanced Woman and Me
PART 1
‘The boobs were my brainchild’ Minka’s story
I arrived in Las Vegas Nevada, and although a glance at the calendar on my Blackberry would confirm it was 2008, on arrival at the airport, it quickly became apparent that in Vegas it always was, and always will be, 1982.
I’m barely off flight BA766, and having bid farewell to UK civility and proper tea – and having tricked myself through passport control by trying to make the nature of this particular documentary sound as dull as possible so as not to stir the notoriously scabrous US customs officials – I’m greeted by a whole land of slot machines and crap tables. In fact it feels like you’ve come off the plane and walked straight into Trump Tower. There must be people who have fluttered away their fortune before even getting their bags off the carousel.
And the airport sets the tone for the whole town – fusty, chintzy and a little bit dog-eared. This airport, like Vegas itself, was genuinely glamorous and gilded and shiny, but a rather long time ago. I’d say it was around the time Peter Duncan was doing his screen test for Blue Peter, and when Margaret Thatcher was putting together her first cabinet. The airport carpet tells the whole story. It’s an Eighties psychedelic take on the kind of rich pile variety enjoyed by patrons of a typical Wetherspoon pub in the North of England. A heavy, dizzying pattern that feeds into the sense that a visit here will be eye-catching but neither pleasant, nor pretty.
Out of the airport, I experience three seconds of dry, dead Nevada heat hitting my pale, jetlagged skin, before jumping into my hired Toyota SUV, a machine that has been air conditioned to sub-Arctic levels. In fact, they have clearly solved the issue of global warming – and the answer, is for all of us to sell our houses and move into US-built Toyota cars. I’ve never been colder. My visit to the snowdrifts of Inner Mongolia to meet the smallest man in the world, where temperatures sank to below minus 20, felt like a beach holiday compared with my commute into Sin City. In fact my travels have given me a mild phobia of air conditioning. If you are going out for a night on the tiles in Vegas, or Hong Kong, or Dubai (I’m showing off now), may I suggest you dress for a particularly harsh Edinburgh winter.
Driving into this bizarre experiment of a town is indeed a surreal experience. It goes something like this: airport, then arid desert, then rubbish suburban bit (imagine a very hot Ipswich) and finally a version of Blackpool on a combination of crack cocaine, crystal meth and a particularly strong mug of builders’ tea. It’s like nothing you’ve seen in your life. But so is downtown Kabul – that doesn’t make it a good thing.
Vegas is a debauched, energy-guzzling, dollar-shredding party that runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and has been throbbing in the desert for about the last sixty years. It is the dark heart of the American dream, flying in the face of the USA’s predominantly evangelical Christian, puritanical culture. It’s like LA in that it’s a very wrong place, but like so many wrong things in life (liquorice, crushed denim, Russian pop music) it’s strangely comforting to know it’s there.
Vegas is all about scale, and inspiring awe. Just in the same way that churches and mosques and synagogues, and whatever it is Quakers hang around in, are designed to make you feel small and create a sense of a higher power, so here in Vegas you feel dwarfed by the size of everything, and the blinding brightness of it all. Driving the Land Cruiser into this adults-only playground, you are struck by a number of familiar sights – a mini version of the Eiffel Tower, a shrunk-down Venice and of course a pint-sized copy of New York City. The message to Americans outside Vegas is: shred your passport, everything that’s good about the world is right here. What a relief to know you’ll never have to worry your pretty little head about going to Paris ever again.
The huge problem with Vegas for me is that I’m not a gambler. So it’s like being a child in a pub – what’s the point? If you don’t gamble, you bypass the whole purpose of the place, rendering the experience utterly meaningless (once you’ve been to the mall, taken in the Bette Midler Show and bought an Abercrombie polo shirt designed for someone ten