Life was much simpler when there was just Glastonbury and the Edinburgh Festival.  The explosion of festivals; music, food, culture and literary, has made choosing a stress-inducing decision.  Although there’s no need to fret over the banana split festival; you’ve already missed it.  That was in Ohio in June.  In America though you would still face the anxiety of choosing between two testicle festivals; Montana’s Testicle Festival (or Testy Festy) in September where the delicacy is bull’s balls, euphemestically known as Rocky Mountain Oysters, and the Turkey Testicle Festival in October in Illinois.  The latter’s website helpfully informs that turkey testicles hang under the left wing and not between the legs.  If neither of those appeal, there’s always the Roadkill Cook-Off in September.  The Burning Man might just have the edge.

Britain has its fair share of eccentric festivals.  Throwing of food is common, such as blackpuddings and eggs, and rolling cheese down mountains; toe wrestling and shin kicking are two separate festivals, although a merger would make sense.

Eating, drinking and watching celebrity chefs cook is the relatively tame format of this weekend’s festival in Edinburgh. Jean Christophe Novelli, Gary Rhodes, Martin Wishart and Rachel Allan are just some of the chefs who will be doing the live cookery theatre at Taste of Edinburgh, 1-3 July.   The tapas-sized portions of food for tasting will be supplied by well-known restaurants such as Tigerlily, Cafe Gandolfi, Ondine, Wedgwood The Restaurant and Restaurant Mark Greenaway who will be launching 12 Picardy Place (formerly Hawke & Hunter) at the Festival. Visitors buy crowns and then pay for each drink or dish with their crowns, with the average dish costing 6-10 crowns or £3-5.

Don’t breathe a sigh of relief thinking this is the only festival this weekend and your decision is made.  If you are in Scotland there’s the Glasgow Jazz Festival and the East Neuk classical music festival  – just to keep things complicated.