Stag and hen nights have always been high-spirited but now they're wrecking our towns and cities with their hangovers.

DO you want to slither through pools of sick or be bopped on the head with a blow-up willy? Probably not. But if you visit many of our seaside towns or some of Europe's most beautiful and historic cities, that's what's likely to happen.

Stag and hen parties have turned resorts into war zones, a tourism chief warned this week. He's not joking. Alan Woods, chief executive of the clean beach campaign, Blue Flag, was addressing a conference at Blackpool. Last time I was in Blackpool it seemed largely populated by groups of amazingly drunk girls in matching T-shirts - usually with slogans such as "Paula's Pulling Party" - bridal veils, garters, sundry assorted sex toys, foul mouths and raucous voices. Not much fresh air and fun for the rest of us.

The streets of Dublin on Sunday mornings are awash - literally - with the remains of Saturday night's stag parties, and usually with a couple of staggering drunks to complete the picture.

Prague is currently the stag party capital of Europe and Tallinn, in Estonia, is tipped to take over, with cheap flights and cheap booze being an unbeatable combination. So be warned.

Stag nights, of course, have always been pretty riotous. Naked men tied to lampposts or abandoned on mail trains. I remember going to one wedding where they foolishly had the stag night the night before and the groom was literally green and got through the service only by being guided - and quite possibly kicked in the shins - by his blushing bride.

But at least it was only one night. Now stag parties and hen parties last for nearly a week, by the time you've had the weekend and another few days to get over the hangover. And presumably they also cost a fortune, judging by the amount of booze sloshing round the streets the next day. Forty eight hour drinking doesn't come cheap. And whole shops are now devoted to the extras necessary for a good weekend - wigs, blow-up boobs, false bums, false... well, you get the idea.

Maybe everyone has a riotous time and loves every moment, though any event that requires quite so many props seems built on false jollity. But as weddings get ever more elaborate and expensive, it's probably only logical that stag parties and hen nights will follow suit.

It's great news for pubs and clubs - and joke shops, no doubt. Yet it's all part of the wider problem of binge drinking and what it's done to town centres. "Rife with rubbish and soaked in sick and urine," as Alan Woods so graphically put it. And that's before the punch-ups start.

Meanwhile, it's an easy decision for those of us who like our streets clean and our bars bearable. As soon as somewhere is famed as being a great place for stag parties, we'll know it's the place to avoid - if only because we want to keep our shoes clean.

Published: 06/10/2004