Between 1993 and 1997, the BBC used to show a comedy called The Detectives. In it, two police officers by the names of David Briggs and Bob Louis are called upon to solve various mysteries. And despite being utterly terrible at their jobs, they always seemed to successfully close the case.

At the risk of sounding rather unkind, that’s what immediately came to mind when I read this story in DJ Mag earlier on about the Spanish police hiring people to find illegal parties in Ibiza and report them. This follows a dramatic rise in Covid-19 cases on the island, and the authorities believe these secret raves are to blame.

The story, in essence, is true. Spanish police are having trouble closing down all the illegal parties on the island, because they don’t know where they are. So the Ibizan authorities are searching for outside help – Ibiza is a small, pretty tightly knit place. However, the idea they’re recruiting “detectives” to do it is somewhat off the mark.

I suspect what has happened is the dance music press found this article in the Periodico De Ibiza, run it through the not particularly reliable Google translator and had some fun filling in the blanks where Google came up with word salad.

And because the dance music press typically have no shame in copying each other’s content – without credit or even checking its accuracy – it became a legend of its own.

Right, everything clear? Good. I’m off to bed…