It happens to us all, eventually.

But why, why did it have to happen to meeeee?

Turning thirty is a tricky business, even for more rugged and emotionally stable fellows than I, and it scarcely needs to be said, dear reader, that I was NOT ‘taking it’ manfully.

The run-up to August 25th, 2018 had, in fact, seen umpteen tantrums, crises and prissy-cum-hissy-fits, my aging fists forever balled up tight and pounding at my ancient temples; my pursed and wrinkled lips forever uttering cruel and blasphemous curses at time, the Creator and mortality itself.

Getting old was, in short, proving to be ‘a bit shit’.

Fortunately, however, I had one last ray of summer sunshine left to warm me as I shuffled into the planned obsolescence of my early thirties: sixteen of my dearest mates along with yours truly were, as the eternal lyric went, ‘Going to Ibiza’.

‘If one has to go down’, I thought, ‘one might as well go down swinging’.

*

As it happened, however, by Jueves Veintitrés, the fateful day of our departure, my august yet inchoate band of brothers and sisters had already suffered some lamentable casualties:

• Casualty #1: Infierno. The beauteous and sage Infierno had, the weekend previous to our jaunt, thought it wise and expedient to take a massive header off a galloping caballo and had, accordingly, somewhat marmalised her drinking arm.
  • While it is possible, of course, simply to switch the limb with which one throws one’s libations into one’s gaping maw, the lady felt a-raving and a-misbehaving might be a stretch too far for one so crippled, so she handed us the proverbial mitten with much mourning and regret. Seventeen, as easy as falling off a log/horse, thereby became sixteen…

• Casualty #2: Genialver. The mighty Genialver, tempestuous, hot-blooded Celt that he is, had chosen the very day before we left to tell his (by all accounts odious) bosses where exactly they could stick their ‘so-called job’.
  • This was admirable work to be sure, though far from commensurate with jetting off for potentially rather pricey Mediterranean blowouts. An extended phone-call, a period of morose reflection and two, three unsuccessful appeals later, sixteen had thus became fifteen…

And as if this double tragedy were not enough, the attendance of one further comrade hung by the proverbial hilo: Chico Francés, poor soul, even as the first merry band of us quaffed pints at Heathrow and excitedly planned out our first couple of Ibizan days, was trapped in a Gallic-wrought cage of unending bureaucracy. His flights booked from Brussels, he languished in central France, imprisoned in his own garlic-scented Kafka novel. Not so long after our own plane touched down on Spanish soil the axe of reality had begun to fall on the lad, and by the morning of the second day, it was confirmed:

• Casualty #3: Chico Francés. Fifteen down to fourteen.

*

But my friends, my friends – let us dwell no longer on the fallen, but on those who made it through the fire. After all, this is their tale, our tale, and while all too short in duration it will live long, we hope and feel, in the telling.

The first group, flying out BA darling, contained myself, Plata, El Águila and Yelmar – all veterans of another wonderful trip, as it happens; one immortalised in Straight Down From Chicago (available in no good booksellers).

Alongside us, sipping upon good, British G&Ts, were La Mejor Novia del Mundo, El Peor Novio del Mundo and Un Mono Ártico Gay – protagonists loyal readers may well remember from We Go to a Land Down Under – scandalously passed over in 2017’s Man Booker Shortlist.

Last but most certainly not least came El Pájaro, Isla del Hombre and Z-Unidad – all three new, original characters, never before seen in these blogs, added, chiefly, to inject some long-overdue sex appeal.

As soon as wheels touched tarmac I sprinted to the nearest baño to don the first of a great many ‘Primani’ tops which were, without exception, shithouse. This opening salvo however – a sky blue, skin-tight T-shirt with IBIZA emblazoned on the front – provoked genuine outrage: The fury of El Águila, for example, knew no bounds, and the usually affable El Peor Novio del Mundo (PNM) – himself no stranger to truly terrible tees – announced “I hate it, I fucken hate it” at the top of his voice and attempted to rip it off my shoulders with his bare, Australian hands.

These were exactly the reactions I’d hoped for, and smugly did I smile. Yet swiftly said smugness gave way to self-doubt: Now obviously everyone on our LHR-Beetha flight would get the ironic comment at the heart of my garb – it went without saying; our brains are large down south, full of nuance and wit. However, arriving at the baggage carousel at the very same time, came a mixed and rowdy Ryanair party hailing from Leeds-Bradford, that is to say, Mordor.

These orcs could most certainly not be trusted to ‘get’ the joke. What, dear readers, if they looked upon me, if not as one of their own, then perhaps as the humble goblin of Barad-dûr might gaze up at a foul and strapping Uruk-Hai – that is to say, if not as kin then at least as kith?

It simply didn’t bear thinking about. I hastened out into the blazing sun.

The queue for the taxi rank out in the oven-like heat was gargantuan – and it was made longer still by our Leeds-Bradford friends, many of whom were now stripped down to the loincloth and coked up to the nines, and who decided that waiting in line was simply ‘not for them’. They promptly barged their way to the front like true Britons, flying the flag of the nation and the standard of Her Majesty.

Eventually our crew, divided three-ways, found three likely looking hansom cabs. Plata, the sole Spanish speaker in our number, did his best to direct the stout taxi-men towards our awaiting villa and then we were off, racing away past Ibiza Town and towards San Rafael and the heart of the island.

Ten minutes in, the cab containing Plata, myself and Yelmar left the open road behind and ground to a comely halt in front of a sprawling supermercado. Inside its cavernous halls, Plata, the very moment he entered la bodega, proceeded to go a little ‘tonto’. Throwing enough booze to sink a mid-sized paddle-steamer into our creaking, bending trolley, he worked with a frenzy which struck me and Yelmar as practically diabolic. Yet the madness, it seemed to me, had a little method in it.

Meanwhile the other would-be revellers had been dropped off on very much the wrong street and were completely unable to find our villa. Morose and cursing, they sat on their bags in the baking sun, sweating their youth away.

Back at the store, Yelmar, being roughly the size of a small sycamore tree, had managed to drag Plata, by this stage frothing slightly at the mouth, away from the off-licence. We now had approximately ‘no minutes’ left to seek out the other comestibles we needed – and sure enough, by the time our dueño for the week arrived to pick us up (and finally show us all to the prodigal villa) we had lain our hands on at best 15% of our ‘food list’.

“Liquid dinner…” muttered Plata, as we eased him into the back of the car and piled him high with rums and whiskies. “‘S…’s all we…all we really need…”

Aforementioned dueño, a friendly dutch lass who had, when it came to Ibiza, ‘tried to get out but they dragged her back in’, drove my companions to the homestead to begin lugging seventeen thousand standard units towards the fridge.  Leaving them to it, I hopped out of the motor a short distance before the turning to our road, and instead jogged along a parallel, godless avenue, over to the semi-conscious and dangerously dehydrated segment of our troop. Once there I was greeted with relieved yet truculent invective:

“Where even is this bloody villa you bloody-well booked, you infinite, sexless cretin?!”

“And how long d’you want to take, you sheep-faced fugitive from hell?!”

“Maaaate, you’s a fooken keint maaaate…”

I placated them with the balm of my smooth words and ushered them around the corner to our orange-painted citadel of refuge, the villa of villas, the Eden of Ibiza.

*

In truth, as villas went, is was a wee bit odd and a wee bit tired; a hodgepodge of strange orange apartments, all ‘smooshed’ together like pound-store presents in a huge game of pass-the-parcel. And yet, for all that, it was really rather charming: The pool was cool and the rooms were plentiful. Air-con and fans abounded, and – to the technically minded – there was a very serviceable sound system. While the young Netherlander did attempt to strike fear into the hearts of myself and Plata with tales of break-ins and new safes and complicated locking systems, it stopped not the others from exploring around the place, staking claims to beds, singing the new gaff’s praises, and clambering up the foothills of Plata’s alcoholic Alps.

Once our fell and frightening dueño… dueña? …had finally ‘done one’, it was time to throw ourselves into the pool and into the holiday proper. On went the tunes and out came the cured Spanish meats (two half portions) and odd-tasting Spanish cheeses (one and one third half portions); in went the cocktails and up came the stars, our first Ibiza day merging softly and imperceptibly into our first Ibiza night.

The first round of what turned out to be many ‘Rings of Fire’ was proposed and agreed upon, and I proceeded to lose quite spectacularly. La Mejor Novia del Mundo (MNM) – who was ‘more disappointed than angry’ that the ‘shopping boys’ had failed so abjectly to furnish the dwelling with any real foodstuffs – heroically managed to source ten large pizzas, yet they came too late for many:

Isla del Hombre, for example, was already gone to the world, living out his own special, foodless existence, moving very slowly and only occasionally falling into the pool fully clothed; others – including myself – were well-oiled enough to believe that opening our account at Privilege, a mere ten minute walk down the road, was the correct way to go about things.

Thus, a short while later – but not before the Privilege doormen had relieved each of us of a fair number of our genuine, hard-earned Euro – a few of us found ourselves experiencing an impromptu and eye-opening Ibiza gay night.

In fairness, it was not until a few days later that we discovered that Thursdays at Privilege sees the island’s biggest ‘gay-friendly’ night hosted. However, the splendidly male-centric gender ratio ought to have been a clue; similarly the glitter-clad, gyrating dancers up on the vast and shiny stage. That several gentleman present were literally falling over themselves to speak to El Pájaro and Plata, arguably the prettiest of our number, would also have been a clear sign to those not quite as deep in their cups as we were. However, these signs all passed us by, as the heavy rumbles of the techno began put the ‘tin’ in tinnitus.

“Let me buy you a beer,” I roared to Un Mono Ártico Gay (MAG) over the cacophony. This Welshman true had insisted on paying me into the super-club as an early 30th present, and I felt I needed to say a liquid ‘thank you’. I therefore grabbed him by the arm and bundled him through an unguarded fissure in the VIP area.

Here, finally, womenfolk.

Like lobsters in pots and pescado in bottle-necked fish-traps, girls were ushered into this pen at the front of the dance-floor, never, seemingly, to leave again. Men, however (save those who had actually paid for the privilege (haha, puns…) of feeling ‘VI’) were swiftly yanked out of this pleasant little pool like the sprats and minnows they were, before being heaved back into the manly mosh of the wider club.

On this occasion, however, we had actually made the bar and I’d managed to source us a pair of eye-wateringly dear Heinekens before the first bouncer arrived…

“Pulsera,” he growled. ‘Wristband.’

“Hop it, lurch,” I suggested.

“¿Qué?” ‘Y’wot?’

“Sling your hook, and fuck off.”

This brazen approach might, might have worked, had a second, more Anglophonic bouncer not arrived to grab me by the seat of the Mansfield trousers and throw me bodily out into the great unwashed.

After this point the night began to get a little hazy, and one by one our crew wandered back to the villa, ears ringing and eyes drooping. I was, I believe, the last man standing in this regard – by this point very much enjoying both the crushing rhythm of the music and the limited, but still enjoyable, success I was having using Google Translate to ‘chirps foreign birds’.

All told, not a bad way at all to begin what was to prove a real, no-holds barred, fiesta of a holiday.