The Problem Of Automated Cheese-Recognition

The problem of automated cheese-recognition has bedevilled cheese-distinguishing engineers for centuries. Back in the early days of the industrial revolution, for example, the famous natural philosopher Wensleydale Probity, first began the experiments that years later enabled him to distinguish between Cheddar and Double Gloucester whilst blindfolded in one of the most memorable lectures ever given to the Royal Society, at least since Isaac Newton’s infamous lecture where he poked a sleeping dormouse with a stick in order to demonstrate the subtle effects of gravity on somnolent small mammals.

However, the world had to wait until the industrial revolution was well under way before the mechanical expertise of the engineers of the time had developed to the degree that made automated cheese distinguishing possible.

Postulation Sage-Derby’s first attempt at the Cheese Difference Engine was a failure, however, due to the complexity of programming the machine to cope with the influx of French cheese, where despite their reputation for being fine cheeses – the machine found it hard to distinguish between Brie and Camembert. Even though the programmer Linda Lovelace spent many hours on her knees perfecting her art, much to the delight of Sage-Derby who professed himself more than pleased with Miss Lovelace’s technique, especially in the deft way she encoded his algorithms.

Unfortunately, the funding for Sage-Derby’s Cheese Difference Engine ran out before he could calibrate the elaborate gearing necessary to accurately distinguish Red Leicester from Cheshire cheese without the operator having to wear a hat. This failure to complete the machine that he believed would transform the art of cheese differentiation left Sage-Derby a broken man. Despite Miss Lovelace’s attempts to get him back up, straight and proud, once more he was never the same again, retiring limp and defeated from public life altogether to sit alone in his garden shed quietly pondering his delphiniums, until his death at the age of 59 in 1882.