Boys go to Zante

It is day Five on Zante and murder is in the air. Our apartment is next to a taverna and the owner, Kimon, plays Zorba the Greek non-stop while scraping the chairs across the stone floor. Nine in the morning may not seem early but if you only got to bed four hours before the music is close to torture.

It is already as hot as you would expect on a Greek island in July. Our cramped apartment with four 18 year old guys plus detritus is rank and only bearable if asleep. Kimon's cafe, music and all, is a better alternative during conscious hours.

Zante - Zakynthos to the Greeks - is the most southerly of the Ionian chain of holiday islands off the coastline of western Greece. The holiday brochures talk about the fishing villages, quiet coves and breathtaking scenery but our group of school-leavers was more interested in the cheap and very cheerful.

We are staying in Laganas in the south , a neon-lit nightmare full of bars, cheap booze and other foreigners. It wasn't that long ago that the British ambassador to Athens dropped in to the see the nightly carnage for himself.

Some of the islanders must wonder if tourism will prove to be as devastating as the earthquake of 1953. There again they have named the bars things like Boozerz, Sizzlers and Cocktail Dreams, so what do they expect?

Okay so last night there were a few scuffles in the street and some poor Greek had his car bonnet mashed by a couple of Newcastle drunks but it could have been worse. For the most part the atmosphere everywhere was friendly. The girls may be fit but can be the worst behaved. They can't handle the drink and just lose it. Two nights ago one staggered out of a bar and hitched up her skirt in the middle of the road to have a henna tattoo painted on her bottom.

Our days are spent on the beach and in the water that is unbelievably warm. There is quite often a good breeze blowing which we discovered has its own dangers. One of our lot fell asleep on the beach not realising how hot it was and was badly burnt, another took out a wind-surfing board and disappeared over the horizon. He had to be rescued before he ended up in Albania. And if you don't want to be picking out the cigarette butts from the sand it is better to move away from Laganas.

The only good thing about living next to Kimon's taverna is the food. It's not great but it's fresh - as long as you like moussaka. We have yet to see fish on the menu, which is strange for an island of fishing villages. We are regulars at his place now and he gives us a bottle of retsina every evening which is the dire local wine.

We were never going to go whale watching or whatever, after all we are celebrating the end of school..