Day seventyseven....

CheeseRoulette

"Voyeur Sex Games Spread On Chat Site"

This was the headline ran by the Observer about a new website that has taken the Internet by storm. The website in question goes by the name Chatroulette. In case you are unawares, Chatroulette is a website which randomly links you with other strangers from around the world via a webcam chat. It is completely random and by the press of a button you can cut to another stranger. But whilst the newspapers will always concentrate on the negative, this is an amazing website. You can be linked to a hotel in downtown Tokyo or a farm in Peru, although you do have to view more willies than you thought you would ever see in your lifetime let alone 10minutes. That aside it can lead to great discoveries. I was talking to 2 Turkish fellas and low and behold they were eating cheese and they gave me a run down of the best Turkish cheese.


They're favourite cheese was Eski Kaşar. The Turks learned about the making of this cheese when they settled in Anatolia. It is a sheep milk cheese. Eski translates roughly into old and the reason it is called old is that the cheese is aged in an icehouse for 6months. If it is made with 100% sheeps milk it will keep for up to 3 years.

They then asked for my view on Turkish cheese. I went on to explain how that the shop I work in sells 100s of cheeses from many different locations. USA, Norway, Greece, Cyprus among the most obscure but not Turkey. But I passed on what knowledge of Turkey cheese that I had.

It wasn't long before i was F9ed and a picture of a not to impressive member was on my screen yet again. They say life is about the small moments....

Day seventysix....

Love Is In The Air

St. Valentines day is upon us. A time to celebrate with your lover or commiserate with your friends. But where has this tradition of romance spurned from. Why are we compelled to buy flowers, chocolates to appease our partners. People believe it came with Chaucer's poem "A Parlament of Foules" in which he wrote.

"For this was on seynt Volantynys day,
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make"
"For this was Saint Valentine's Day,
When every bird cometh there to choose his mate"

So from that point on we were doomed. The consumerist had won. But on the plus side, many beautiful romantic poems were created. My favourite is "Say Cheese" by Patrick Winstanley.

"Gorgonzola, Cambozola, Happy snappers, Sandwich wrappers.
Parmesan, Vacherin, Week old socks, Smelly cocks.
All these, Say cheese"

Beautiful, it brings tears to ones eyes. Cheese has often been linked to romance and in this advertisement for Amul cheese slices, it shows that courage and cheese slices can lead to great romantic feats.

So for all you lonely hearts out there grab a cheese slice and take that gamble....

Day seventyfive....

Saturday Night

It's the weekend. Time to get on the dancing shoes. Get that fresh from the wash, crisp Ben Sherman shirt on your back. A couple of splashes of Old Navy and you are set. Off for a dance into the hippest cosmopolitan bar you can find.

But yes as this animation shows, there are hidden pit falls. This story represents the modern youths of today Saturday night out. Everyone goes out with starry eyed optimism. Maybe they'll meet the one they love, maybe they just have a good time. They dance the night away and then overcome the dangers and finally they are about to take that girl home then....

So stay in and listen to other peoples japes instead...

Day seventyfour...

What You Looking At?

In every aspect of modern life their is fear. The media breeds it. Everything gives you cancer, the world is getting hotter, and cheese is getting tougher. Turophobia is rife. That is the fear of cheese. I am more a turophilliac. Even so in 2007 the government set up the Cheese Enforcement Agency, the CEA if you will. This website breaks the cheese down into different classes and helps us identify what cheeses we can or cannot own, eat or trade.

http://www.jasperfforde.com/specops/cheeselegality.html

Some of the legal jargon on this site can be quite tough to understand so here is a hand chart you can stick up on your wall.

For some reason the tough cheeses are depicted by a lumberjack, but is the lumberjack really the vision of the tough man?

But please take note do not be afraid. How to deal with fear? Laugh at it. Today's post has been in the vein of Orange Juice song "Poor Old Soul part2". Thank you and goodnight.

"His tongue tucked firmly in his cheek"

Day seventythree....

Bang Bang He Shot Me Down

"I was blown up whilst we were eating cheese."

This quote is taken from Ernest Hemingway's semi-autobiographical novel A Farewell To Arms. It is the main character, Fredrick Henry's, response to an orderly in the hospital asking what heroic act he had committed to result in him being sent to hospital. But Henry is more humble and would rather be honest and say he was enjoying cheese than to make up an heroic act. But he is truly the hero as he goes looking for others wounded.

"I was after him, holding the cheese, its smooth surface covered with brick dust.”

Beautiful stuff. It is a very tragic book, but at the same time it is very sensual, as Hemingway seems to connect near death experience, with the characters appreciations of the finer things in life, such as wine and cheese.

But enough beauty. I should be concentrating on the explosions, the heroism, the edge of your seat stuff. This isn't WW1 now. How do we juxtapose such things these days?

http://onthebutton.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/kraft-naming-rights-texas-stadium/

That right we buy the naming rights of a demolition of an American football stadium. Texas Stadium to be precise. Not only are they sponsoring the demolition, they are running a competition to who can press the button.

http://kraft.promotions.com/mncexplosion/splash.do

Some may see this as crass advertising. But we are not elitist and cynical here. Embrace it. What a perfect combination. Releasing a cheese aptly named "cheddar explosion" then buying the rights to a high profile demolition. This is modern day Hemingway writing but in real life. We should be celebrating a company that has developed from this....

To the second largest food and drinks company in the world. So all you bitter Cadburys supporters, do not fret about your new owners. Its time to look to the future.....

Day seventytwo....

Tiviski Into Action

What do you envisage when you think of the northern African country of Mauritania? The beautiful Moorish music. Music made by the ethnic group the Moors not music that you want more of.

But that's not what I am looking for. Fat women? Well yes it is famous for its portly ladies as they see obesity as a sign of wealth and therefore more attractive to the males. Men would drool at the sight of stretch marks and fat ankles. They even have "fat farms" were young girls as young as 7 are sent to fatten up. But it is now losing this quirk as it is seen as old fashioned and now only 11% of young girls are force fed. But that's not what I am here to discuss.

One of the foods used to plump up the Mauritanian mistresses was camel milk. It has a very high fat content. And well where there is milk, cheese often follows.

The camel cheese is called Caravane and is a soft briesque cheese that has an 'animal' taste. Some liken it to goats cheese, but those are the people who liken every meat to chicken. It was invented by a Miss Nancy Abeiderrahmane. She started a dairy in 1989 called Tiviski and the nomads would bring their camels to her for milking. However quite often her supply would be greater than the demand and she went about looking for other ways to preserve excess milk. This is quite similar reasoning to how sheep and goats milk cheese evolved. Unfortunately camels milk doesn't have the proteins need to curdle the milk. This did not stop Nancy and she found a Frenchman who discovered an enzyme that helped the curdling and in 1994 the first camel cheese was produced.

A lovely tale that conjures up images of a bygone world. A nomadic existence. Moving on from place to place unable to settle. Like the scene of Lawrence of Arabia, dust, sand, camels, and beautiful young crews.

Day seventyone...

Cheesart (Part Duex)

This is one of Vincent van Gogh final paintings. A Dutch post-expressionist painter from Zundert. A troubled man, he struggled for most of his life with mental illness and anxiety and his art was never appreciated until years after his early death at the age of 37. I can only feel sorry for his empty life, his painting never enjoyed and neither was one of his most excellent works. His use of light perfect, choice of subject immaculate and of course it tastes great...

This is part of a group of cheeses being produced by K. H. DeJong Cheese. Including other Dutch masters such as Rembrandt and Mondrian.

http://www.fromartharie.com/products/khdejong.html

But all this publicity screams of desperation and uncoolness from these flailing artists. None were as cool as Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. Or as his close friends would tend to call him Pablo Picasso. He made them look like assholes....

"Some people try to pick up girls and get called assholes. This never happened to Pablo Picasso."