Now, as cooler weather brings relief and some rain, the focus has turned from vacations ruined by fire or industrial action to those Mediterranean resorts ruined by the many thousands of British, German and Dutch yobs who descend on them. They have turned once peaceful and picturesque fishing villages into a hell on earth. We have witnessed TV coverage of resorts taken over by aggressive teenage drunks who fight, vomit, urinate and even have sex in public with any girl stupid enough to "join in the fun" of binge drinking into a stupor on cheap, and sometimes free, booze.
The loutish vacation culture, of booze, aggression and casual sex promoted by some tour operators to the 18 - 30 age group and actively encouraged by the resorts they target, began in the Spanish Balearic islands at Magaluf in Majorca some years ago. It spread later to Ayia Napa in Cyprus and now this year to the onetime family resort of Faliraki on the otherwise stunningly beautiful Greek island of Rhodes, and to Kavos in the equally beautiful island of Corfu.
The culture's routine centers around drink; getting up with a hangover in mid-afternoon for a meal of chips with sausage and beans, chips with curry - or just chips alone - at an all-day breakfast fast food joint, (no local specialities on offer here), before making for the bars to drink beers chased by often free shots of spirits until collapsing in bed or on the street at around 6 am. One teenage girl from the West of England is quoted as having drunk 15 beers chased by 10 spirit shots and sharing a "goldfish bowl" of an unidentifiable and lethal "Bomba" punch mixture before heading off to the beach for casual sex with a pick-up she couldn't recognise the following day. 'Sex on the Beach' is perhaps the appropriate name of a popular cocktail in the resort bars.
