Insane tomato time

TICKETS are now on sale for La Tomatina ­ the crazy, fun­filled tomato throwing festival in Buñol, Valencia. The event starts at midday on Wednesday, August 16 and tickets are €15 each.

The story of La Tomatina began on the last Wednesday of August 1945, when some boys caused a participant to fall from a passing parade of floats. The participant, filled with anger, began to throw everything that was in his path. By a whim of fate, in the middle of it all was a vegetable stand which was used by the angry crowd to release adrenaline: those present began throwing tomatoes until the public enforcers put an end to this strange fight. The following year, the young people deliberately repeated the altercation, even taking tomatoes from their homes. Far from accepting this event as a custom, the police prohibited it from being repeated in order to prevent it from taking root as a tradition.

The Tomatina was banned in the early 1950’s, a decision that did not dissuade its participants, even though some were arrested. The people protested and the festival was authorised again, adding more participants every year and becom­