On the last Sunday before Christmas, I drove to Blackpool to play poker. You wouldn't have got me there for any other reason. When I was young, my family used to take day trips to Lancashire's beach resorts. Each of them - Fleetwood, Cleveleys, Lytham and Morecambe - was desolate in its own way, but none provoked so many tears as Blackpool, all that giddy anticipation disappointed by damp amusement arcades, flea-ridden donkeys, filthy beaches and filthier seawater. I arrived in the mid-evening, and parked at the southern end of the Golden Mile beneath the silhouette of the Big Dipper. There were no signs of life. Most of the hotels and restaurants were closed for the season; the rest were boarded up. The illuminations were switched off; the only sound was the incessant thunder of the sea. This part of town is currently rated one of the most deprived areas in the country. An eerie, desperate place. The perfect place for a casino.

LRB 29 January 2009 | PDF Download