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No, this is isn't another recipe thread! In the Melbourne Age this morning, G K Chesterton is quoted as saying: "Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."
I wonder if there has been any change since G K C enjoyed his last Stilton.
Wallace of Wensleydale
I assume you are looking for something a bit classier than
'I once had a meatball,
All covered in cheese....'?
I'm really sorry, but I just could not help myself. The following famous piece is prose, but may be said to involve poetic justice. All complaints about the length of this post or about copyright vioations should be directed at the man who dangled "Wensleydale" like bait.
Customer: Good Morning.
Owner: Good morning, Sir. Welcome to the National Cheese Emporium!
Customer: Ah, thank you, my good man.
Owner: What can I do for you, Sir?
C: Well, I was, uh, sitting in the public library on Thurmon Street just now, skimming through "Rogue Herrys" by Hugh Walpole, and I suddenly came over all peckish.
O: Peckish, sir?
C: Esuriant.
O: Eh?
C: 'Ee, Ah wor 'ungry-loike!
O: Ah, hungry!
C: In a nutshell. And I thought to myself, "a little fermented curd will do the trick," so, I curtailed my Walpoling activites, sallied forth, and infiltrated your place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some cheesy comestibles!
O: Come again?
C: I want to buy some cheese.
O: Oh, I thought you were complaining about the bazouki player!
C: Oh, heaven forbid: I am one who delights in all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse!
O: Sorry?
C: 'Ooo, Ah lahk a nice tuune, 'yer forced too!
O: So he can go on playing, can he?
C: Most certainly! Now then, some cheese please, my good man.
O: (lustily) Certainly, sir. What would you like?
C: Well, eh, how about a little red Leicester.
O: I'm, a-fraid we're fresh out of red Leicester, sir.
C: Oh, never mind, how are you on Tilsit?
O: I'm afraid we never have that at the end of the week, sir, we get it fresh on Monday.
C: Tish tish. No matter. Well, stout yeoman, four ounces of Caerphilly, if you please.
O: Ah! It's beeeen on order, sir, for two weeks. Was expecting it this morning.
C: 'T's Not my lucky day, is it? Aah, Bel Paese?
O: Sorry, sir.
C: Red Windsor?
O: Normally, sir, yes. Today the van broke down.
C: Ah. Stilton?
O: Sorry.
C: Ementhal? Gruyere?
O: No.
C: Any Norweigan Jarlsburg, per chance.
O: No.
C: Lipta?
O: No.
C: Lancashire?
O: No.
C: White Stilton?
O: No.
C: Danish Brew?
O: No.
C: Double Goucester?
O: No.
C: Cheshire?
O: No.
C: Dorset Bluveny?
O: No.
C: Brie, Roquefort, Pol le Veq, Port Salut, Savoy Aire, Saint Paulin, Carrier de lest, Bres Bleu, Bruson?
O: No.
C: Camembert, perhaps?
O: Ah! We have Camembert, yessir.
C: (suprised) You do! Excellent.
O: Yessir. It's..ah,.....it's a bit runny...
C: Oh, I like it runny.
O: Well,.. It's very runny, actually, sir.
C: No matter. Fetch hither the fromage de la Belle France! Mmmwah!
O: I...think it's a bit runnier than you'll like it, sir.
C: I don't care how fucking runny it is. Hand it over with all speed.
O: Oooooooooohhh........!
C: What now?
O: The cat's eaten it.
C: Has he.
O: She, sir.
(pause)
C: Gouda?
O: No.
C: Edam?
O: No.
C: Case Ness?
O: No.
C: Smoked Austrian?
O: No.
C: Japanese Sage Darby?
O: No, sir.
C: You...do *have* some cheese, don't you?
O: (brightly) Of course, sir. It's a cheese shop, sir. We've got--
C: No no... don't tell me. I'm keen to guess.
O: Fair enough.
C: Uuuuuh, Wensleydale.
O: Yes?
C: Ah, well, I'll have some of that!
O: Oh! I thought you were talking to me, sir. Mister Wensleydale, that's my name.
(pause)
C: Greek Feta?
O: Uh, not as such.
C: Uuh, Gorgonzola?
O: no
C: Parmesan,
O: no
C: Mozarella,
O: no
C: Paper Cramer,
O: no
C: Danish Bimbo,
O: no
C: Czech sheep's milk,
O: no
C: Venezuelan Beaver Cheese?
O: Not *today*, sir, no.
(pause)
C: Aah, how about Cheddar?
O: Well, we don't get much call for it around here, sir.
C: Not much ca--It's the single most popular cheese in the world!
O: Not 'round here, sir.
C: and what IS the most popular cheese 'round hyah?
O: 'Illchester, sir.
C: IS it.
O: Oh, yes, it's staggeringly popular in this manusquire.
C: Is it.
O: It's our number one best seller, sir!
C: I see. Uuh...'Illchester, eh?
O: Right, sir.
C: All right. Okay.
'Have you got any?' he asked, expecting the answer 'no'.
O: I'll have a look, sir... nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno.
C: It's not much of a cheese shop, is it?
O: Finest in the district!
C: (annoyed) Explain the logic underlying that conclusion, please.
O: Well, it's so clean, sir!
C: It's certainly uncontaminated by cheese....
O: (brightly) You haven't asked me about Limburger, sir.
C: Would it be worth it?
O: Could be....
C: Have you --SHUT THAT BLOODY BAZOUKI OFF!
O: Told you sir....
C: (slowly) Have you got any Limburger?
O: No.
C: Figures.
Predictable, really I suppose. It was an act of purest optimism to have posed the question in the first place. Tell me:
O: Yessir?
C: (deliberately) Have you in fact got any cheese here at all.
O: Yes,sir.
C: Really?
(pause)
O: No. Not really, sir.
C: You haven't.
O: Nosir. Not a scrap. I was deliberately wasting your time,sir.
C: Well I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to shoot you.
O: Right-0, sir.
The customer takes out a gun and shoots the owner.
C: What a *senseless* waste of human life.
Hi Max,
thanks for this piece of social realism!! It should be integrated in every Managers's Handbook of the future.
I'll not complain about the copyright violation per se but a little attribution would have been nice.
I know, we don't need it, but just pro forma as it were.
Ah, don't whinge about copyright. I'm sure John Cleese and Eric Idle are delighted that people still find their sketches incredibly funny. Lovely bird, the Norwegian blue. Bootiful plumage!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
Our cat periodically deposits the uneaten half of an unfortunate mouse on just outside the door. We inevitably call it, "Eric."
"That bird is dead, sir, deceased, departed this life, perished, ceased to live etc., etc ..." one of the Monty Python's group best efforts. Still tickles me!
wow
okay, here's the obligatory link to the "Dead Parrot sketch", as opposed to pasting the whole thing here. which is preferable? beats the norweigian blue outta me....
-joe bfstplk
http://persweb.direct.ca/sanchang/couch/parrot.htm
Copyright laws aren't dead, they're just resting...
I'll not complain about the copyright violation per se but a little attribution would have been nice.
I know, we don't need it, but just pro forma as it were.
A hit, etc.!You are absolutely right, I ought to have included an attribution. For tsuwm, I had forgotten how long the sketch was when I started copying it. A link would probably have been a better idea. At 042, I think I'll just slither off before making a bigger asp of myself.
max, fwiw, I was fine with your paste-job -- it was (arguably) on-topic. DP, otoh, was not.
please forgive the initialisms.
-joe bfstplk
cheese ... max, fwiw, I was fine with your paste-job -- it was (arguably) on-topic. DP, otoh, was not.
---------------------------------------------------
Dear tsuwm, Mea culpa. I brought up the Dead Parrot. Should have sent it private however, I was delighted to get the clickable link thru regular post.
wow
(Going off to read etiquette book)
joe bfstplk
Dare I ask...?
http://www.lil-abner.com/cappbio.html
to find out about joe bfstplk and his creator Al Capp, originator of comic strip "Lil' Abner"
wow
Once when my oldest daughter was only a little over a year old, our part-time nanny brought to a picnic a new delicacy consisting of blue cheese blended with cream cheese made into little balls, and rolled in comminuted cornflakes. My daughter helped her self to one, but after just one bite, put it down with a disgusted look, and wiped her hands repeatedly, suggesting that the cheese ball reminded her of something that might have fallen out of her diaper.
this may not be poetry, but it's definitely cheesy...
CASEIFACTION noun cheese-making "The Octuple Gloucester," - "...a giant cheese, the largest known in the Region, perhaps in the Kingdom. [para] Some considered it an example of Reason run amok, -- an unreflective Vicar, worshiping at the wrong Altar, having convinced local Cheesemen to pool their efforts in accomplishing the feat. Scaled up from the dimensions of the classic Single Gloucester, not only in Thickness, but actually octupled in all dimensions, making it more like a 512-fold or Quincentenariduodecimal Gloucester, -- running to nearly four tons in weight when green, and even after shrinkage towering ten feet high by the time it emerged from the giant Shed built at the outskirts of town especially for this unprecedented Caseifaction..." Pynchon, Thomas, Mason & Dixon, p. 167.
Okay tsuwm, just in casein I forget later, on behalf of all of us I will concede that when it comes to words, you are the Big Cheese!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
Amen to that, CK. I was tempted to say Head Cheese, but couldn't find definition to be sure it was complimentary, which I would want it to be.
Well, not as poetry per se, but definitely as music, church music, no less.
Ted wanders away humming "What a Friend We have in Cheeses"
TEd
>What a Friend We have in Cheeses
what?! we have an exegesis, friends.
There is also that part-chapter dedicated to extremely pungent cheeses in Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat. This is an extremely funny, witty book which I recommend to anyone who is not familiar with it!
what?! we have an exegesis, friends.
What?! He's leaving?
(Good one, tsuwm!)
Oooooh TEd! ~ When Father Steve gets a hold of you...
That amounts to blasphembrie!
>Oooooh TEd! ~ When Father Steve gets a hold of you...
>That amounts to blasphembrie!
Cremini! You don't like a Gouda pun when you see one? Troo, Olivet more kinds of cheese than that, Kassseri really like 'em. But some of em are better with Morbier, and a few smell like Manuri. I cheddar to think I might have given you more Amou than you need to Decize Caerphilly whether you'll be Banon me out of the bleu.
Bondes, James Bondes
TEd
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