La Tomatina

As I write, the little town of Buñol in Valencia is waking up, its population swollen massively with people from around the world. The town council will be busy putting protective covers over the buildings in the main square, a ham is being fixed to the top of a tall, greased pole and 150,000 kilos of tomatoes are no doubt already loaded into several trucks. Sounding strange? It gets better.

The crowd of thousands will be working each other up into an excited frenzy. Hundreds will try to climb the greased pole to get their hands on the prized ham. The atmosphere will increase as the morning passes, everybody anxious for the main event ... ¡LA TOMATINA!

Yes it's that time of year again. At mid-day thousands of people will squeeze into the main square of Buñol where trucks will dump 150,000 kilos of tomatoes onto them and the worlds biggest food fight will start.

Said to have started in 1945, there are several versions of how the fiesta started. One claims to have its origins in a simple food fight with a couple of brothers throwing the tomatoes from their salads at each other, another tells of locals throwing tomatoes at a street musician, whilst another dares the claim it started during an anti Franco rally. We'll never know. But what we do know is that the fight will start with the dumping of the tomatoes and last for two hours. By the end the crowd is exhausted, the square is knee deep in red mush and nothing, and nobody is spared. At the end the crowd is marshaled out of the square and hosed down by council workers, yes I mean the crowd is hosed down, then the square.

I must be running on a full tank of Spanishness because I love this and wish I was there.