Remember this place! Yes you do, don't lie, everyone used to go there. Your selective amnesia won't fool me – and besides... it wasn't that bad. Sure the entire image of the club was based on a forgery of Gary Larson's cartoon “The Far Side”, but if we were deducting points for lack of originality, most clubs in Durban would fail dismally.

They followed the standard recipe for a Pinetown pigs-night club. Start with a couple of litres of Good Hope brandy-liqueur, add some machine coke, throw in some barely-18 tarts, a couple of schoolboy rugby players, and allow to simmer. After two hours, place on dance floor and stir with the same old tunes until nicely pickled. Release onto street, and allow the fighting, drunk driving and random chaos to ensue!

Phar Side used to have stripper nights on Thursdays, and from 9pm the girls were shooed off into another room where they couldn't see the guys ogling some ancient old duck while she paraded around starkers on the dance floor, often with a hapless twit from the audience who would volunteer to go nude and have hot candlewax dripped over him in front of his buddies. Good times, good times.

And what about the location? Right next to the police station! I seem to recall there being a vending machine or phone booth, or something, in the cop shop that people would go to use, hopelessly smashed, clutching car keys in one hand and booze in the other while trying to maintain balance in front of all the irritated coppers. Ahh, to be young and careless again, eh?

From the flyer which I somehow managed to save for seven years, we can see that they were re-opening the club on the 7th of August 1999 (and that Ian F was having a laser party, but let's let that slide). Phar Side loved to close and re-open, sometimes with a different name, often with a small facelift and sometimes after a complete transformation. What were the other names that they used? Digglers? The Junction? I'm sure there were hundreds.