Wheaton Cheese Chase

Not yet a reality, but it could happen. The Gloucestershire cheese chase has been cancelled for the first time in centuries due to overpopularity. The chase is inherently unsafe to begin with, and too many spectators makes it worse. But I think this would be a fine cultural and culinary event for Wheaton to pick up the slack. We could roll three rounds of Double Gloucester in the Metro, one per escalator; for extra challenge the escalators could be running up. Or we could stage the roll down Reedie, starting at Georgia and ending at Viers Mill.  Traffic could be temporarily diverted or not, depending on one’s goals for the event.

What could possibly go wrong?

Markets in Cheese

I am so so sad that I am only today, too late, discovering the existence of the National Cheese Exchange, which actually doesn’t exist anymore, having folded in 1997 as America’s regulated cheese trading moved into the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The NCE was incorporated as the Wisconsin Cheese Exchange in 1918 and changed name from Wisconsin to National in 1974. There is something evocative about the name “Cheese Exchange” that the CME can’t quite match. Just another sign of the decline of Western civilization. Get off my lawn…