Cheese!

In the Sixteenth Century, the lords who governed the area which was to become the county of Gloucestershire were faced with a crisis.

There were too many stupid people. And they were multiplying.

This had a knock-on effect on the use of resources and the local communities.

The governors had a meeting to create a way of getting the idiots to self-select and remove themselves from the gene-pool. One man suggested asking them to throw themselves off a cliff.
How could we possibly get them to do that? asked another.


And so... cheese-rolling was born.


I went to see a re-enactment of this astonishing method of social engineering last Monday at Gloucester's Annual Cheese Rolling Festival. Yes, you did read that correctly.

A piece of cheese is lobbed down an insanely steep hill (the photos on the BBC news website do not even begin to do it justice) followed by people who nowadays have come from all around the world to take part. Especially Australians (so kind of in-keeping with the original culling-of-the-unwanted ethos of the event.)

The winner gets to keep the cheese. (And has first dibs on the ambulance.)

I'm just glad I wasn't working on the Trauma operating list - there looked like a lot of bones being broken on the bumpy tumble down...
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On the photos front - my camera went missing in action, but I'm getting it back soon. And my Grade 1 shearing disaster has already matured into about a Grade 3 (my hair grows fiendishly quickly - it's my one superpower... if only I could find a way of harnessing it for good, not evil...)

I'll try & dig out some photos when I tell you about the fancy dress party I went to...

Smile!