When Cheese Attacks

But there is no reason whatsoever why one should not start a sentence with the word 'but'. However, it is advisable never to attempt to start a sentence with a hammer, as words are fragile and easily dented.

You may say; 'this is all very well, but what has it to do with cheese?'

Very little, actually.

I'm sorry, I know the article is entitled When Cheese Attacks, but there is a… slight problem. Cheese is, by its very nature, a pacifist. Very few chesses are naturally aggressive - with the obvious exception of Feta, of course - and tend very much to mind their own business, unless severely provoked.

So, despite the title of this article there are very few accounts of out and out cheese aggression in the literature, except - of course - the great Manchester Sage Derby riot of 1847. It is a tale often told, and taking its familiarity to all who even profess the slightest interest in cheese for granted, we can move on to some of the less well documented cases - few that there are - of rampant cheese aggression.

Let us begin with a case recorded back in 1899 when a Stilton ran amok, poisoning seven people in the now infamous Shrewsbury Stilton Slaughtering. The Stilton, which had murdered the people because 'they smelt a bit funny', was caught by the first ever recorded use of a Carrier Hamster to deliver a warrant for the Stilton's arrest while the cheese was still at the port of Dover, attempting to flee the country.

In the late 1950s, gangs of Dutch Edam wandered the streets of London's East end, ostensibly for their own protection from traditional British cheeses upset about the 'waves of Immigrants'. The Conservative politician, Kneejerk Bilefoaming, specifically mentioned them in the now-infamous contemporary speech where he claimed the rivers of Britain will be running with curds and whey if the waves of immigrant cheeses were not curtailed. The resulting tension exploded into in the Edam riots of 1957 when six Edams attack and savagely sliced some Cheshire cheese on its way home from a party.

In 1978 a man, Excrescence Dobbindong, out taking his dog for a walk was savagely beaten by a round of Double Gloucester in need of a fix of 'herbs'.

In 2003 'Red' Leicester was expelled from the Labour party for openly admitting he was a socialist. Three days later at the Labour Party's annual Conference, he attacked Tony Blair with a packet of Cheese Crackers, severely bruising the then Prime Minister's grin.