Cheese Wheel Tragedy

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

UK-based WebDippers Octavious and Jamie99UK bonked noggins while barreling down a hill after a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese mid-way through the annual bank holiday Cheese Chase and Mass Casualty Picnic. In a Freaky Friday-style incident (known as a "Topsy-Turvy Twosday Kerfuffle" across the pond) the two swapped personas. Now, neither wants to switch back.

Jamie's blood pressure has never been so low and he's down to three pints per day. He hasn't fisticuffed a stranger at the pub in weeks. His right arm has never been more limber now that he can enjoy the wholesome boyish fun of an old fashioned continental salute.

Relieved of the burden of defensively obfuscating on behalf of ideas he doesn't even agree with, Oct has found more time to focus on the little things in life. His garden is much more enjoyable since he had his nosy neighbour arrested for an untoward post on X. At a Green Party event he met someone under 30 for the first time since the 1980s, who taught him how to access the BBC via something called the "world wide web".

[Jamiet99uk]

:applause:

[DougJoe]

...there was (don't know if it's still there) a show on Netflix called _We Are the Champions_ of which the 1st episode was about the Gloucestershire downhill cheese race/chase.

Crazy, crazy, stuff.

[Octavious]

I wasn't aware that that our local festivals had such global awareness, especially one of the smaller ones. Does the Urchfont Scarecrow Festival feature as highly? The Frampton County Show? The Joust at Berkeley Castle? The Tewkesbury Mop Fair? Severn Bore Surfing?

I'd understand if the Bridgwater Squibs or the Ottery St Mary Tar Barrels were known overseas... but Cooper's Hill cheese rolling?? Of all the bloody things...

[Jamiet99uk]

The Ottery St Mary Tar Barrels is absolutely mental.

[Octavious]

The Ottery St Mary Tar Barrels is absolutely mental.

Have you been? I thought the children's event in the afternoon was one of the cutest things I've seen. All excited with the flames pouring over their little mitts

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

Wow this tar barrel event looks awesome.

[Jamiet99uk]

Other exciting and quirky British traditions:

- Repeatedly looking in the fridge without expecting the contents to change;

- Putting the kettle on at every commercial break but then forgetting to make a cup of tea, or not making one in time for the programme to resume, and thereby re-boiling the same water multiple times during an hour of television;

- Enjoying cricket;

- Strict adherence to escalator decorum;

- Having carpet in the bathroom;

- Arguing about which caterpillar-shaped cake is the best;

- Obsessively referencing the change in price of a "Freddo" chocolate bar over time;

- Pointing at pot-holes in the road (a favourite of Liberal Democrats in particular).

[DougJoe]

The only other uniquely English thing I know of is The Wall Game at Eton College. Read about it in a "Sports Hall of Shame" book in the early 90's. I recently heard a reference to it on a show on US National Public Radio named _Wait Wait Don't Tell Me_.

"Points can then be scored by a shy (one point), a kick to goal (five points) or a goal itself (ten points). A goal is a particularly rare phenomenon, with only three having been scored in a St Andrew’s Day match in the entire history of Wall Game and none for more than one hundred years. Inevitably, this has led to a high percentage of draws, with almost half of matches ending in this manner. Indeed, no point has been scored by any team in a major match since 2016." (https://www.etoncollege.com/news-and-diary/school-news/a-most-eton-sport-the-wall-game/)

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

For a place I associate with fuddy-duddiness, the UK surprises me with its quirky traditions and tolerance of public danger.

I feel like North Americans are genuinely too unruly for this sort of spontaneous community-based chaos.

We'll spectate someone riding a bull or driving a car quickly around a circle, but when it comes to mass participation I truly don't think we could be trusted to chase cheese or carry flaming barrels.