Mind Matters: Drunken Debauchery

Mar 8 2008 by Aled Blake, Western Mail

Teenage Aled would have been well up for a couple of nights of drunken debauchery in the Med

OLL back the years. It’s the summer of 1997 and I’m in Ibiza with my mates.

I’m not here for the sun or high culture (unfortunately), I’m here for the cheap alcohol, the bars and nightclubs packed with similarly beery Brits. And it just so happens that I’ll be celebrating my 18th birthday out here, following an exhaustive year of sitting “the most important exams of my life”.

Somehow my parents have yielded and given their consent to my travels, in fact they’re ever-so generously funding most of my trip. Thanks!

Even greater surprise to all concerned is that I somehow manage to survive my first holiday away with the lads, coming back in one piece and in no need of any hospital attention – despite my friends’ best efforts.

Now fast forward to the summer of 2008 and it looks as though I’ll almost certainly be going back to the party island, under no little duress this time – I hasten to add.

A good friend from university is having his ubiquitous stag-do-abroad at his favourite holiday destination. And this time I’m not looking forward to it with anywhere near the bated breath of an idealistic 17-year-old.

In fact, I’m sticking my head in the sand to the best of my abilities on this one, failing to book flights and dragging my heels over hotel choices – probably to the annoyance of the poor bloke in London who’s organising it.

There’s the prospect of a long and uninteresting trip to one of London’s lovely airports because I can’t find a flight from Cardiff or Bristol.

Then there’s a terrifying two-and-a-half hour plane journey alone, followed by two nights of pubbing and – from what I can gather – clubbing at Ibiza’s finest youth venues.

The trouble is, I’m much more excited about plans I’ve hatched with two of my closest pals to go on a Deliverance-esque kayaking adventure in France this summer. Hopefully our trip will not be an exact replica of the famous 1970s film, ahem, but will be eventful enough in its own little way.

Although plans are tentative, mainly because we can’t decide on an exact date yet thanks to various stag parties and weddings that are on our collective calendar this summer, we are dead set on doing it.

We won’t be out to pull as many women as we can, nor to drink as much tequila in one night as we can manage without having to be dragged home by the local constabulary.

Not that I would ever advocate anyone behaving in such a way, of course.

What we are looking forward to is the peace and tranquility of rural France, the beautiful scenery, the food, the culture – the absolute antithesis of my prospective stag celebration in Ibiza.

Teenage Aled would have been well up for a couple of nights of drunken debauchery in the Med and no doubt the 28-year-old me will have a good time as well once I’m out there.

Because out there I will go, and good time I will have – the stag is too good a friend to deserve any less loyalty.

Having been on two of these overseas stag parties I have decided that if I ever get married I will almost certainly never corral my friends into an overpriced holiday abroad to celebrate my supposed last days of freedom.

A journey down the Dordogne on kayaks would seem much more fitting.

Tryst Williams is away