vests are great. As I approach 28, I find myself unaccountably interested in wearing them. Fortunately, Jez led a small expedition to the wanky bars of the west end on Friday night, and I proudly lowered the tone by attempting to rock the Swingers look in the vastly unsuitable surroundings of Halo and Indigo Yard.

I loved it. Every one else could not have cared less.

Vegas rolled around again on Saturday, this time as a joint birthday outing for Michelle and Ben. Josh and I had a little surprise up our sleeves: we managed to get hold of a couple of surplus RAF dress uniforms and we engineered a slightly later arrival at the Outhouse for pre-club drinks. Despite Devon’s awed dismay (“My God! Those are perfectly ghastly” – I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone become Victorian with shock before) the uniforms rocked. Captain Ben’s posh epaulettes and Hitler moustache paled into insignificance beside our authoritarian genius. (Despite being a bit of a lily-livered lefty at heart, I find it hard not to stand upright and have generally better posture when I’m wearing a suit, kilt or uniform. Fire away, psychoanalysts.)

We basked in the warmth of the heaters* in the beer garden, sipping unpronouncable beers while we waited for the club to open. During a lull in the conversation, a distinct clunk noise came from the bar. We looked up to see a damp, sheepish-looking Gordon carrying two depleted pints, and a plate glass door with beer dripping down the inside.

Vegas was busier than normal, and despite doing my best to trot out a few swing moves with Samina, we didn’t really get into the swing (arf arf) of things because of the sheer number of people there. Our Vegas money went ungambled and most of my real money went unspent, so hard was it to get to the roulette table and the bar. Still, I was maneouvred skilfully about the dancefloor by Michelle, who always contrives to make cretins such as myself looked far more accomplished than we actually are.

And my word, the uniforms went down a treat.

I caved at about 2 am; great as the uniforms were, seems they were designed more for hanging around cold airfields, waiting to scramble or something, and I was suffering fairly badly from heat exhaustion. I joined a few other scabs and we cooled off on the walk home.

A good Vegas, if not quite as jaw-droppingly great as last time.

On Sunday I had lunch with Dave, Michelle, Ben et al and wandered down to the old flat to pick up the stuff I’d left there the night before.

Jez and I are hatching a plan for another road trip next year, but this time there’s a point to it, rather than the because-it’s-there reasoning behind the US trip. This point is to enjoy a stately drive to the Nürburgring, enjoy a rather less leisurely drive around it a few times, and not die. To this end I’m trying to find a suitably lunatic little car (205 GTI, Mk1 MR2 or the like) on Autotrader, and Jez has bought GT4 so that we can practice the track on the PS2.**

I tried a couple of laps on Sunday afternoon, and I was afraid for my life. I died three times and wrote the car off a further three. This is possibly the most hare-brained holiday idea I’ve ever helped conceive.

* Ah, heating up the entire atmosphere. We might not do SUVs as well/badly as the Americans, but we have our own uniquely British approach to self-inflicted environmental disaster.
** Now there’s a sentence with rather too many TLAs.