Bad taste day, la tomatina, appendage and gift

With Hat Tip to Peter Harvey, the rabbit's attention has been drawn to an annual event in the Spanish village of Bunoi called 'la tomatina'. The streets run red - not with blood but with - erm - squashed tomatoes as up to 40,000 tomato throwers turn up and throw tomatoes at each other. As you do.

There are strict rules to la tomatina: the tomatoes must be crushed to lessen impact, old clothes are to be warn and tennis shoes are to be worn rather than sandals. One can easily imagine a sandal floating away in a torrent of pureed tomatoes. A common problem, I'm sure all will agree. Goggles are advised. One website announces 'there is no political or religious significance to la tomatina'. Ermmm... Quite so. It was banned for a while under Franco, though. Puts you right off tomatoes - as in eating them - apparently.

It is the rabbit's unpleasant duty to advise his readers that Hurricane Irene did not stop bad behaviour on the part of at least one reprobate as can be seen from this news clip. Such behaviour is of course to be deprecated, particularly in such a difficult time. Hat Tip to Tony who does an exceedingly fine blog. For those of a sensitive disposition well - look away now.



Continuing the bad taste theme, the rabbit mentioned the Velvet Underground's The Gift in all its poor taste in a comment on JoJo's blog . Apparently it originates from a short story Lou Reed wrote in a creative writing class but it's the way John Cale tells it...