Say 'I'm not doing this for the money,' or 'MySpace? Never heard of it,' or 'Britney who?'
(OK, so I'm kidding with the last one.)
This highlights a couple of interesting issues.
The first is that we are under the illusion that America and Britain share a common culture. We think we watch the same movies (mostly true), talk the same language (somewhat true) and share the same celebrities (more false than true).
For example, and no offence intended to my esteemed expedition patron, but few people here have heard of Sir Steve Redgrave. Likewise, when I met yesterday with a potential recruit to Team Pacific and we were discussing media possibilities, I hadn't heard of most of the American athletes he mentioned.
As for MySpace, maybe I've been leading a sheltered life. It claims to have 95,000,000 users (95,000,001 since I signed up yesterday) but its existence had somehow passed me by. My excuse is that I've been off rowing oceans, and cyber-news failed to reach me in mid-Atlantic. I can see I'm going to have a steep learning curve to get to grips with American culture.
But of course politically we are in sweet harmony - see this very amusing video of our 'special relationship'.
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I hate to see food go to waste. I want to lose weight. I am in America. These three facts present me with a moral dilemma. America just doesn't do small.
This is what I love and hate about America. I love it because it's larger than life. Americans like to think big. Why try to raise a mere $100,000 to row the Pacific? Why not aim for $1 million?
But I hate it too, because the same generosity of spirit and expansiveness of mind also lead to super-size everything. My bran and apple breakfast muffin yesterday in Vegas was as big as my head. [See above for head. See below for muffin. Spot the difference.] But it was so good I ate it all anyway.
Then I felt guilty and had to go to the gym to try and sweat it off. And thus compounded my greed (using up more than my share of the world's food resources) by using up its fuel resources too - using an electric treadmill in an air-conditioned gym. I know I could have run outside, but it was 100 degrees out there and I would probably have died.
I guess nobody's perfect, and better a pragmatic environmentalist than no environmentalist at all. But the guilt, the guilt!
A muffin
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The light in the top of the Luxor pyramid (Las Vegas version) is, according to Tim the bus driver, the brightest light on Planet Earth. At 32 million candlepower, it is so bright that when the Space Shuttle passed through its beam, the light passing through their window was bright enough for them to read the newspaper. And spooky but true, in late summer, the light looks milky because it's surrounded by a huge swirling cloud of tens of thousands of moths. And what kind of moths are these, irresistibly drawn to the pyramid's light? The Sphinx moth.
There is a 1000-foot-high rollercoaster ride here that is so high that somebody at the top phoning a friend on the ground may find that the rain that is falling at 1000 feet is evaporating before it reaches their friend.
These things are strange, but is probably some of the least bizarre things about Las Vegas. Last night I went toured the Strip with a friend - I saw volcanoes erupting, ships sinking, fountains dancing, and lions prowling - just your average Monday night in Las Vegas.
The hotel where we had dinner was the MGM, the largest hotel in the world, with 5034 rooms. 10,000 people work there. I now see why the Green Valley Ranch, with a mere 500 rooms, is regarded as small fry.
And here's another strange thing about Las Vegas - you would have thought that in a city with a) such a huge power consumption, and b) so much sunshine, there would be solar panels everywhere. But I haven't seen any yet.
If New York (last week) is the gateway to America, where you can be whoever you want to be....
then Las Vegas (now) is larger than life, where cash is king...
and Los Angeles (next week) is where dreams come true in the movies... but in real life?
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The average American consumes 3,774 calories a day, almost double the 1,960 calories consumed by the average man or woman in India. 76% of American men and 73% of American women are overweight, compared with 17% of Indian men and 15% of Indian women. But America is not the fattest nation. Read on....
There is a fascinating article in August's Zest magazine, giving all kinds of facts and figures about the state of the nations when it comes to food, drink, weight and health. Here are a load of fascinating facts about our global eating habits...
Amongst the Europeans, the French are relatively lean, with only 46% of men and 35% of women being overweight. But here's the trade-off - 35% of women aged 16-30 smoke.
It takes a French person 22 minutes to eat a McDonald's burger, while an American chomps through a larger-size burger in a mere 14 minutes. Presumably the French could eat faster if they didn't keep having to stop to drag on a cigarette.
Despite being the second thinnest nation surveyed (after India), with just 18% of women being overweight, Japanese women want to lose an average of 11lb 8oz. Yet Canadian women, 57% of whom are overweight, are relatively at ease with their size - 69% saying they are happy with their weight, although statistically this must include 12% who shouldn't be. Similarly, 65% of Italian women think they are the perfect weight, even though 38% of them are officially a bit tubby.
Maybe this has something to do with exercise helping to promote a better body self-image. 62% of Italians exercise, whereas only 15% of Japanese women do. Brazilian women, 71% of whom take regular exercise, are the nationality most likely to describe themselves as beautiful.
Brits consume an average 3.412 calories a day - 66% of our menfolk are overweight, 62% of our women. We have bigger waists than our American counterparts - our average vital statistics are 39-34-41, while they are 41-34-43.
There are more overweight Australians that Brits (72% of men and 63% of women), despite them clocking up an average 8,873 steps every day - impressively close to the recommended 10,000. The average American manages a measly 5,210 steps a day.
Other things you probably didn't know:
- the average German eats 100kg of meat a year, equating to about 4.5lb a week.
- Swedish women have the lowest alcohol consumption in the world, with only 1% drinking every day
- The average Russian man, by contrast, consumes ¼ litre of vodka a day
- The average Mexican consumes 120kg of tortilla and 7.5kg of chilli peppers every year
So, you may be wondering, who ARE the fattest people on earth?
You may recall that before he went on a diet, King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV of Tonga made the Guinness World Records book for weighty monarchs, weighing in at 462lb (or 33 stone, or 210 kg). He now weighs in at a (relatively) svelte 286lb. Apparently 97% of Tongans (and seemingly a similar proportion of former ocean-rowers) carry a gene that makes them prone to weight gain.
So the Tongans are officially the world's heaviest nation. 90% of their men are overweight, and 91% of their women. The average dimensions of Mr Tonga are 5ft 7in tall, 14st 3lb in weight. Mrs Tonga is 5ft 4in tall, and weights in at 14st 9lb.
Given my current sensitivity about my weight (30lb gained in 4 months, since my rather skinny arrival in Antigua) I think I've just found the perfect destination for my next holiday...
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