Casinos in the UK generally tend to be grubby little places where you will normally lose your money faster than it took you to draw it out of the cash machine. Imagine my surprise last night when I entered a casino in Stoke that was more like a palace than a casino, and completely out of place in the grubby little city that surrounds it.
Ok, that is very harsh on Stoke. I’m sure its a lovely place, but after getting majorly lost on the way because of the utterly stupid ring road/one way system, and then what happened as I left (which I will come to later) you’ll understand why I’m looking forward to going back their as much as Wayne Rooney was looking forward to reading the Sunday papers last summer.
The reason for going to this particular Casino was to play in a Poker tournament for the very first time. I, like most, play online for fake money and have managed to amass close to a gazillion chips, so therefore I must know what I’m doing…..oh how wrong was I!
The buy in was low (20) and after a cagey first 50 hands, I decided to make my move, all in on a straight which I actually won. The next hand was sitting in my favour, so all in again, and won again! So i’ve suddenly go from 1900 chips to 12500 in 2 hands and things are looking good. However, I got cocky and within the next three hands, I was off the table. Needless to say, I was taught a major poker lesson. At this point I can proudly admit to turning down the Blackjack and Roulette tables and instead heading home at a reasonable 12am. That was the second unintentionally stupid thing I did last night. I jumped in to my car which at the moment is the new Alfa Romeo Giulietta 2.0JTDM Veloce. Being an Alfa, it naturally looks stunning and is a drivers car, even with a ‘tractor’ engine!
Since the A50 would be quiet at that time of night I intended to give it a really good thrashing! So you can imagine how annoyed I was when I joined the A50 to see road works, but my annoyance quickly turned to shock-horror when I saw some numpty driving directly towards me, the wrong way up the A50! To add further insult to injury, this numpty was driving with his lights off! Thinking this might just be a road worker, I decided to give him a flash to try and wake him up. I quickly realised that this was no road worker but this was a very angry man who clearly didnt like being flashed, as he proceeded to try and ram me off the road. I had to swerve to miss this van coming towards me, I would at this point like to comment on just how well the Alfa handled. The Pirelli tyres gripped fantastically well….. thankfully!
As I looked in my rear view mirror I saw him clearly attempt what was possibly the worst handbrake turn ever, and watched in amazement as he smashed in to the central reservation. Five ‘people’ then jump out, and made a run for it. Four ran off into some bushes whilst another, a 16yr old girl, ran straight in to the path of a jackknifing lorry (The police said that she had split her head open and had a load of minor cuts, so basically she is a very lucky girl).
At this point the police arrived and I had to wait with the road workers so that I could make a statement. Whilst speaking to them it turns out that this maniac had tried to mow down three road workers and they were lucky to be alive. A police officer then arrived to take my details and I was sent on my not, so merry way.
The drive back to my house was understandably a very sedate one, but this did give me a chance to see how competent this car is at normal speeds. It is very smooth, quiet and frugal in Normal mode (this has the same DNA modes as the Mito) and has a more sporty, fun and much more responsive Dynamic mode (this being my default mode when I get in).
But it’s not all good, the rear legroom isn’t the best in class and nor is the boot space. Also, the lack of anywhere to put your left foot when its not pressing the clutch can be annoying on a long run, but my biggest gripe with this car is the fact that even though Alfa have managed to build a great car with wonderful exterior build quality, the same can not be said for the dashboard which had a lighting panel fall off within 2 HOURS of this brand new, delivery mileage car being dropped off which is just typically Alfa Romeo. But, I forgive these things because its Italian.
Let me try to explain. Ferrari and Lamborghini are renowned for arguable making the best cars in the world but they have a habit of bits falling off, breaking down or catching fire, but there is still a 2-3 year waiting list, because Italian cars are built with passion, flair and looks that could snap womens panties off in a quarter of a second flat.
You could always go down the conventional (boring) German route and buy a VW Golf and you’ll have a very good, competent and efficient car. But in Italy they have a saying:
“Una Ferrari la bella ragazza si porta a casa per incontrare i tuoi genitori. Una Lamborghini la puttana che incontri nel fine settimana.”
Now copy and paste the above into google translate, but swap Ferrari for Golf and Lamborghini for Giulietta, and hopefully you’ll see what i’m getting at.
