'They Scream, They Sing, They Fall Down, They Take Their Clothes Off, They Cross-Dress, They Vomit'

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Enough with the Democratic Convention already.

While all that may well be going on in Denver (probably at any random CodePink event), that is actually the exasperated plea from the mayor of Malia, in Crete, where drunken British youth are running amok.

The mayor of Europe's latest 'party' destination has called on the UK Government to do something about the drunken, rowdy young Britons invading his town.

'They scream, they sing, they fall down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit,' said Konstantinos Lagoudakis, mayor of Malia in Crete. 'It is only the British people — not the Germans or the French.'

The town has fallen prey to the curse of the package tour, like Ayia Napa in Cyprus, Faliraki in Greece and others before it.

'The government of Britain has to do something,' said Mr Lagoudakis. 'These people are giving a bad name to their country.'

The fact that the mayor's comments appeared in the New York Times will only underline the impression that he is right.

They come in the wake of a Foreign Office report which said 602 Britons had been hospitalised and 28 raped in Greece alone in 2006/07, with the number of UK citizens arrested in foreign resorts up by more than 15 per cent to 4,603.

'Many arrests are due to behaviour caused by excessive drinking,' the Foreign Office report added.

Malia hit the headlines last month after 20-year-old Briton Leah Andrews was accused of strangling her newborn child in her hotel room. She is now in custody charged with infanticide.

The residents, hoteliers and traders are so frustrated by the deterioration of their town that last year they held an anti-British demonstration. Now the main tourist strip is patrolled by 20 police officers who break up fights and make arrests.

Lovely.

'With Dogs, They Might Spend a Few Minutes With Each Other Before They Do It, But the Brits Don't Even Bother With That'

Ouch. The residents of the Greek island of Malia aren't so fond of the British youth who invade in search of cheap sex and even cheaper booze.

Dawn breaks over Malia and casts a shaft of sunlight over the wreckage of the night. Young men and women - white-faced and with glazed, unseeing eyes - wander the streets like the living dead.

Others lie flat on their backs in the streets, semi-comatose. Trails of blood on the pavement reveal where revellers have fallen or been in a fight.

In the budget hotels, girls lie in unfamiliar beds next to boys they've just met. When they wake up with crippling hangovers, they'll ask themselves: 'Did we?'

It's Thursday in Crete's premier 'party' resort, and, as usual, it's been a busy night at the medical centre - around 50 Brits turning up for treatment to cuts, sprains and wrist injuries from fighting.
...
There are no boundaries, no restraints. It is an ugly scene that reveals a terrifying picture of British society. All the problems back home - binge-drinking, crime, promiscuity, teenage pregnancies - are magnified here to grotesque proportions.

Some of the young holidaymakers are out of their minds on ecstasy (the drug of choice) or cocaine or heroin, which locals says is easily obtained from dealers who hang around the bars.

When they're in this state, many of the tourists grab someone to have sex with. No one bothers with chat-up lines; there's no need.

The locals look on with contempt. As one Greek put it: 'With dogs, they might spend a few minutes with each other before they do it, but the Brits don't even bother with that.'