Have you noticed how many celebration days there seem to be in the calendar. We celebrate everything from Doing strange things with Food to Nothing to Fear days. It is also Memorial Day in America today but I just wanted to focus on what seems to be wasteful and silly and that is cheese rolling day.
Cheese Rolling event: One of the most iconic British traditions since at least 1826, near Cooper’s Hill. Still, the roots of this popular event remain something of an enigma.
What is clear, though, is the fact it’s been a part of local culture for a long, developing from a local festivity into an international sensation.
Traditionally held on the Spring Bank Holiday at Cooper’s Hill near Gloucester, it’s not an event for the faint-hearted. The event draws participants worldwide to pursue a 9-pound wheel of Double Gloucester cheese down a hill. The winner is the first one across the finish line—usually in some spectacular tumble.
Double Gloucester cheese is always associated with the event of Cheese Rolling and comes carrying a legacy deeply entwined with the countryside heritage of Gloucestershire.
Apparently, there are quite frequent injuries, which is unsurprising when you see the steepness of the hill and the manic enthusiasm of the contestants. The winner keeps the 9lb cheese.
Election
It would be remiss of me not to mention the general election due on July 4th. It could be summed up by describing it as a promise fest in which the promises are not worth the paper they're written on, and I know, although this seems cynical, it comes from years of experience of general elections. The politicians involved are doing their usual trick of manipulating statistics to suit their own story. In reality the voters need to consider their own situation and how it has changed over the last 14 years.
The interesting factors that have emerged so far seem to be centred round late teens. The Labour Party want to give the vote to 16 and 17 year olds whereas the Conservative Party want to reintroduce national service in a different form from post war but nevertheless compulsory.
I believe we have to move away from the first past the post 2 party system and towards proportional representation.
God Bless
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