In a time when football stars don the alice bands to compensate for their fresh blonde highlights and rockers turn to macrobiotics and prune juice rather than whiskey and hookers the stag weekend could be the last bastion of old school masculinity . Amalia Illgner take a look at the modern incarnation of this rite of passage and discovers that there's more for the modern stag weekend than a night of drunken bonding and bristols.

Back when Michael Caine was a sex symbol, Michael Jackson still black, and Chicken Tikka was considered the height of chic culinary, the perfect stag night simply made up a case of beer, your best friends, a full load Polaroid, and an amateur stripper named Bambi. How times have changed ...

According to the Office for National statistics are now much less likely to marry first and if we do get dragged along the corridor is much better late than never. Indeed, for men the average age has crept up to an all time high of 30 ½ years, so there is little wonder that it is only a small cause for celebration when two people in this world of Bridget Jones unable to leave their work stations, microwave-meals-for-one and eBay auctions and actually commit themselves to each other.

What this means for the stag weekend is that couples generally have more money to spend on their respective stag and hen weekend and what does that mean that weekend deer are increasingly elaborate, adventurous and full of action. In other words, the post is up to the expectations. Forget sitting on the back and order the seafood special at your local twenty-first century the typical stag weekend is action packed full days of fighting style army paintball, canyoning, quad biking, beer of Monaco of Bavaria, parties Estonia and coasteering. For those of you who think crossing Piccadilly Circus during rush hour is about as bumpy as you've ever seen, is the art of re coasteering around a coastline and jumping off cliffs into wave lapped coves below. And 'the closest thing to become Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as anyone who works in an office is coming. Never again. And the boys are in love. In fact, coasteering - as the trusted faithfulls like paintball and quad - is rapidly becoming the new black when it comes to planning the ultimate stag weekend. There is really nothing like getting a bunch of guys together, adding a strong element of fear, the smell of competition and the threat of ritual humiliation to bring out the latent Evil Knieval inside.

It seems this chest beating machismo and daring even extends to the cultural sphere, dozens of quintessential British stags are downloading Google Earth, skimming through a phrase book and heading off shore to experience far flung destinations for their weekend of freedom. The Foreign Office has published a detailed survey at the end of last year and found that a staggering 70 percent of British youth "now prefer to travel abroad for hen and stag parties." This is certainly a giant step off the night by our parents' in Bournemouth. And perched on top of the package destination is undeniable cold Eastern Europe. Riga Vilnius. Tallinn. Bratislava. Moscow. I'm so cool that hot. The Iron Curtain is cold and the Eastern Bloc is rocking. This stems mainly from the recent expansion of the European Union, making costly and irritating having to remember the past and the fact that flights are now cheaper than a ticket to see Rod Stewart Greatest Hits tour at Wembley. And do not forget the exchange rate. Ah, the rate tender, where often quid will be humble enough to buy more than a pint of local quality. This point is often argument enough to attract punters from expensive metro poles like London (where a quid you can buy a copy of the Sun and half a mars bar).

So the 21st century Stags unite! The options are endless as your imagination. This is really the easy part. Now it's just a matter of convincing her to marry you ...