Puerto Banu - nice n' sleazy

I have just returned from the plastic wannabe capital of Europe, if not the world; Puerto Banus. I was over for a long weekend with RSVP magazine at the annual Marbella Ball, a right posh affair, with all the visiting Irish A listers mingling with their ex- pat Irish A lister equivalents who are now in permanent residence on the Costa. In typical Marbella fashion it was fillets steaks all the way and dancing the night away to Boney M. Happy days with old ra ra rasputin!

But I had forgotten how intriguing Puerto Banus was when the lights go down, and the sleaze rises to the surface. In fact we were lucky to get there at all. The lunatic taxi driver drove his Seat at 170 kilometres an hour, hitting the motorway side railing at one stage and careeering across lanes. He then robbed us at the hotel and sped off for his next victims. But anyway, back to the port and the home of the €10 diet Coke. While the food isn't half bad, apart from Monday night and the three hour wait for a chateaubriand, you get a chance to watch the wildlife roll by and roll by they do, in rented Bentleys, Porcshes, Lamborginis, Ferrraris, Hummers and Rollers.

All rented, at a cost of a few grand a day. There are a proportion of the natives who own their own prize babe magnet, the odd property developer, soccer player, drug dealer or man on the run and for hours on end they just cruise around the tiny port, with every visiting man jack of us oogling the motors and their ott registrations.

Stuff like TRA5H, or BA3Y, or SL3AZE, I could go on. Puerto Banus attracts a right rough lot and I wish somebody would tell those young ones with the beer guts that crop tops are really not the way to go, or that bleached blondes with thighs like tree trunks should really steer clear of shorts. And mutton, don't talk to me about mutton, women well passed their prime dressed like as if they are entering a fancy dress, or a competition entitled "how to dress like a sixteen year old, with a face like the map of Spain"

But its gotta be the gangs from the UK that would win any prize on offer. The lads are tatooed from head to toe, 20 stone and loud, the girls something similar. Both are only interested in hoovering back as much beer and fats frogs as poss in a night and there is no shortages of either, especially the fat frog which they sell in the bars and clubs by the pitcher full, especially on ladies night! Beware all you young Cork lads venturing down the port this summer, for if you are approached by a young lady who seems to be flirting with you, a word of caution; all is not as it may seem, nine will get you ten she's a hooker.

Some of the saddest sights I saw were the young young girls with the old old men, paid as they were by men nearly four times their age.

Property nightmare

The Irish economy may well be on the fritz but my heart breaks for the southern developer with a €6million a month interest repayment to his commercial bank.

He has a clatter load of houses and apartments, none are selling, but he needs to sell two a week just to make the interest payments. Its a sorry state and I couldn't help wonder how the guy sleeps at night.