THIS year, the Belfast Mela is celebrating its 16th birthday. There's a culinary analogy when it comes to questions of authenticity and how this great festival, originally principally a celebration of Indian culture and cuisine, has developed.
Some of the best loved versions of curry (not a term Indian cooks ever use, incidentally), such as chicken tikka masala, are inauthentic. But then evolution is key in dance forms, music and cuisine, which the festival also provides.
Mela founder and ArtsEkta director Nisha Tandon proudly indicates the cultural range this year.
"As well as the big carnival on August 20 with all our participants, we have an aerial performance from Fidget Feet who will be interweaving Irish and Indian mythology.
"From the beginning, we had a little showcase of other cultures, but it's bigger now. It's fusion, a kind of world culture, and this year the Syrian community is represented for the first time."
When is plagiarism not plagiarism? When something's no longer in copyright, when it's unconscious borrowing or 'homage'?
I never realised the Jaws theme came from Dvorak's New World symphony until I caught it on radio. Yet there it was, at the start of the last movement, duh-der, duh-der in the low strings. Pianist John Shea then Tweeted a brief reference to Yellow Submarine he'd spotted in Dvorak's Carnival Overture (two minutes or so in, if you're interested).
Composer Neil Martin is unsurprised: "Given for most people there are a finite number of notes and colours in music, it's inevitable from time to time we hear certain melodies that remind us of some other piece of music.
"But I once composed a reel I thought was outstanding, only to find it was note for note a reel played by a friend of mine."
David Trimble, immortalised by Colin Davidson in a final portrait and in another sense by his contribution to the Good Friday Agreement, was definitely into the arts.
Interviewing his wife Daphne years ago in The Europa, I learned that the couple would often head to the Grand Opera House next door for the latest opera production. Maybe Verdi or a bit of Wagner.
She told me performances were frequently interrupted up to three times by bomb scares but that she and her husband always returned to the stalls. Mrs Trimble also discussed the frustration at the unionist community not winning friends via their culture and PR skills the way republicans have.
August is a wicked month, according to Edna O'Brien. Turning up the temperature on August 3 at The Empire will be Meow Meow (Melissa Madden Grey) with her show Feline Intimate.
The singer and burlesque performer and actor has a voice described by one reviewer as "honeyed cream studded by razors ".
Meanwhile, The Accidental Theatre has The Four Worst Things I've Ever Done on August 5 by Ewan McGowan, which is (what else?) a dark comedy.
