Ibiza offers as much chance of an authentic Balearic experience as Blackpool does a rustic Ye Olde England getaway As one promoter admits: "It's a skanky dive, a right mess. Lads on the pull, slaggy girls - you might as well go to Benidorm."So where else to go? Clubbers with a bit more cash may fancy themselves pretty cool for heading off to Goa They are deluding themselves. The small Spanish island of the late Eighties and early Nineties was a magical spot - a sun-kissed home of artless sophistication, and a music known as Balearic beat. By 1994, the Balearic vibe was legendary But now, sadly, it has become mythical. You find only overpriced clubs promoted by the very names in charge back home, with the same old DJs banging out tacky tunes to a mindless swarm of Costa del Top Shop boys and girls.

Thousands of clubbers may have booked their package clubathon in the sun; every half-decent club in the country may have decamped to the island for the summer; compilation albums with "Ibiza" in the title may be selling splendidly; but the sorry truth can no longer be ignored: Ibiza is crap. avin' it large in Ibiza! Chillin' on the beach, natural like Summer of Love every summer out there Balearic vibe and all that, innit? Well, er, no. Ruthless exclusivity in the golf clubs in the English shires - in Scotland and Ireland, golf is virtually classless - supports this bubble of pretence.. The middle classes tend to disapprove of gambling; do-gooding reformers put an end to cock-fighting in 1849, and their heirs live on.SPORTS IN THE MIDDLEMountaineering and climbing: remain populated with what Oxbridge grads snootily term "northern chemists" - grammar school self-starters in sweatshirts and cagoules. Enlightening human-against-nature thing attracts the puritanical.Squash: is now out of favour, but remembered fondly by a generation of 1970s proto-yuppies as the power game for middle managers.Golf: remains firmly located in the petit bourgeoisie, who feel they are a cut above the rest. But any gambling sport will continue to attract the working classes who, above all, like a flutter.