Just look at some of the things we do to blow off steam: swimming through mud, hurtling down steep hills chasing cheese, goading enraged bulls on narrow streets, getting naked with thousands of others in the middle of winter, hurling coloured dye at each other, racing boats built from beer cans ... the list is long and varied.

Every nation on earth has its own peculiar celebration. Check out our interactive below for the world’s wackiest festivals.

EUROPE

This week, more than 20,000 people have pelted each other in the street with tomatoes in the 70th annual Tomatina in the Spanish town of Bunol. More than 170 tonnes of ripe tomatoes were offloaded from seven trucks into the crowd packing the streets for an hourlong battle.

The event was inspired by a food fight between local children in 1945 in the tomato-producing region.

Over in Italy, in the town of Ivrea, oranges are the choice of weapon as residents re-enact an ancient battle in medieval costume, armed only with the fruit. Nine teams of orange-throwers battle against one another, while participants are fed with free beans to keep energy levels up.

Energy levels are needed in Finland each July for the Wife Carrying World Championships, wherea man carries his female partner through an obstacle course. The fastest couple win. Despite its humorous aspects it has deep roots in the local history dating back to the 1800s when local men tried to prove their worth to a brigand called Rosvo-Ronkainen so they could join his gang.

Back to Spain, you can’t mention festivals without mentioning bulls. Several areas have bull running festivals rhrought summer, the most famous being the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona - an event which keeps medical staff busy and parents of foolish backpackers nervous

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GREAT BRITAIN

While continental Europe has some odd traditions, the British take it to another level of bizarre.

There’s the popular Cheese Rolling each June where dozens of otherwise sensible people chase a 1kg wheel of cheese down a steep hill in rural Gloucestershire. Gravity usually wins and spectators tend to be the biggest beneficiaries. Broken bones and concussions are not unknown.

Up the road in Wales, hundreds compete in the Bog Snorkelling Championships where intrepid types - often in fancy dress - dive into a stinking canal of mud and swim with their head down for about 50 metres.

If that doesn’t appeal there’s always the World Toe Wrestling Championships each August or the World Gurning Championships each September, where competitors pull the ugliest face they can muster or the Burning Tar Barrel Festival. Held each November, people run through the streets carrying burning barrels of tar. Because, England.

ASIA

Closer to home, Asia has myriad weird festivals.

Each winter in Japan, thousands of men get their gear off and hurl mud and water at one another at the Hadaki Matsuri (Naked Festival). The idea is the water puririfes people. It’s also is freezing.

Keeping our clothes off, Japan is also home to various fertility festivals, the most famous being Kanamara Matsuri - or the festival of the penis, a celebration centred around a penis-venerating shrine once popular among prostitutes who wished to pray for protection from sexually transmitted diseases.

Across in Korea, The Boryeong mud flats have become a venue for mud wrestling, mud throwing and other tom foolery each July.

Water features heavily in Thailand’s popular Songkran Festival each April. This is Thailand’s New Year celebration where most of the country indulges in mass water fights. The best events are in the north where the locals show up with massive water guns, water balloons and coloured sprinkles.

India is home to hundreds ofcolourful festivals, the most celebrated being Holi - a 16-day religious festival where thousands throw coloured powder and water at each other.

THE AMERICAS

Across the Pacific, North, central and South America are home to myriad strange celebrations.

Each August close to 50,000 hedonists gather in the Nevada desert for eight days of mayhem, culminating in the burning of a giant wooden effigy at the celebrated Burning Man Festival.

Up the road in Montana, there is the Testicle Festival an adults-only affair, wherethe theme of eating bull’s testicles, or ‘Rocky Mountain Oysters’ is the big thing. We hear most people end up having a ball.

If that’s too much to stomach, head south to Georgia and the Redneck Games - which

features events such as ‘toilet seat throwing’, ‘bobbing for pig’s trotters’, the ‘mud pit belly flop’ and the mysterious ‘armpit serenade’. A Canadian version of the games began in 2006.

Keep evading south and to Mexico, for the Day of the Dead which celebrates loved ones who have died and nods to the revellers own mortality or The Night of the Witches when shamans witches and healers perform a mass cleansing ceremony to get rid of the previous year’s bad energy.

In Brazil on New Year’s Eve, millions celebrate Reveillon. This is the Ultimate White Party, where revellers dress predominantly in white which symbolises purity, peace and renewal.

AFRICA

Harder to get to are some of the fascinating festivals in Africa, such as the magnificent Gerewol Festival each September in Chad and Niger. This is dating - tribal style - on a grand scale. Each year the semi-nomadic Mbororo people gather for a week of incredible celebrations where young Mbororo men decorate themselves, donning make up and jewellery and ‘displaying’ to young women in search of a partner. No need for Tinder here.

Over on the Cote d’Ivoire, the Fête du Dipri involves a midnight start where women and children sneaking out of their huts and, naked, carrying out nocturnal rites to exorcise the village of evil spells. Before sunrise the chief appears, drums pound and villagers go into trances. The frenzy continues until late afternoon of the next day.

In Benin, there is an annual Voodoo Festival which is easily the country’s most colourful and vibrant event.

AUSTRALIA

Our own festivals seem rather tame compared to the rest of the world.

Of the most notable, there’s Darwin’s Beer Can Regatta, because they drink so much beer in the Top End they had to find something to do with the empties. You can only imagine the reaction when bright spark said “let’s build boats and race them”. Four decades on, the regatta is still going strong.

Down the Stuart Highway, Alice Springs becomes “yachting” central with the Henley-on-Todd regatta where “boats” race along the dry riverbed of the Todd River which “flows” through town. It’s unknown if the thousands of empty beer cans are then taken to Darwin for boat building.

Other regional towns have some celebrations, one of the wackier being the Elvis Festival each January in Parkes, NSW. Thousands slip on their blue suede shoes for the trek this homage to The King. The highlight is the parade of Elvis impersonators of every possible size and colour, proving he never really left the building.

Thankyou very much.