This will almost certainly mean nothing to you, but as a recovering compulsive gambler it's been interesting to drive past every morning on my way to work and see a former furniture store being turned into gambling den.
In fact, every time I've driven past, they've actually managed to make it a little more tasteless than the time before. I particularly enjoyed the installation of huge neon signs advertising the vices on offer: "POKER", "SLOTS,", "ROULETTE", and - of course - "GAMES OF CHANCE SLIGHTLY WEIGHTED IN FAVOUR OF THE HOUSE DESIGNED TO RELIEVE YOU OF YOUR MONEY OVER A PERIOD OF SEVERAL HOURS". That last one went twice round the building.
My favourite bad taste addition was the large poster advertising the place's imminent opening. This included a moody picture of the kind of person they're expecting through the door. No red-nosed fifty-something overweight gamblers looking for a poker table from which they are not yet banned; but instead smoothly-dressed, smiling twenty-somethings, led by a besuited devil with a couple of days' worth of stubble, bow-tie undone like that bloke from the VW Golf advert, a couple of young ladies on each arm. All smiling like loons, all drinking expensive looking cocktails. You know: Twats.
The message is clear: NO LOSERS HERE
Also: TWATS ONLY
Many people were against another casino in the town, but I disagree. The place has acted as a Bad Taste Vacuum, sucking all the bad taste from the area, and packaging it into one small, chrome-plated package behind the velvet rope of the Bad Taste Event Horizon. Once the place opens, I'm pretty sure it will double up as a Twat Vacuum, sucking in all the local twats and making Reading a bearable place to go in the evenings.
It also makes me 100% sure that I will never set foot in one of these places as long as I live (except, perhaps, in the event of a zombie apocalypse when poker chips become our new currency).
More of this kind of thing.
Speaking also as an ex compulsive gambler, now recovered, I am able to understand fully why the legend on slot machines "Payouts average 98.9% of stake" is such an attractive investment opportunity and why the banking industry was completely unaware it was shafting itself.
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