How can I ever make it up to you?
This cheese is green and you wanted blue
I can’t hope to console ya
With this Gorgonzola
If green cheese is something you do eschew.
Maybe you would feel better
If I bought some simple sharp Cheddar
Or maybe I shouda
Just bought you some Gouda
Or perhaps ewe would prefer Feta.
Wine, crackers and cheese, a gathering intended merry
Over time the consumption was overwhelmingly berry
Cheese and crackers forsaken
Caused some heads to be achin’
Resolve next time to sip, and take in more crackers and fermented dairy.
And here’s a good one from Kevin:
There was a young lady named Louise
Who ate nothing but cheese
She consumed it on toast
And was a great host,
Though she served nothing but cheese!
I love Terri Nixon‘s:
When your parents are coming for tea,
And there’s green stuff all over your Brie
A nice piece of Feta
Will make things much betta,
But *do* store things more Caerphilly!
Here is a piece of prose from the talented Martin Strike:
They day was going wrong. I’d been in the supermarket, got no sale from my client, and was now overrunning for my sales meeting. Filling the car with fuel, I dialled to let the office know I’d be late, one hand on my mobile, one on the pump.
‘OI! Pump Six,’ came a booming voice from the sky, that reverberated all-round the roof of the petrol station.
I looked around me. Everyone was filling up as if nothing had happened. Six was my pump. I fell to my knees. Was this God calling me at last?
‘Yes, you,’ roared the almighty. ‘Turn that bloody phone off, or we’ll all end up in kingdom come.’
I was humbled. God was telling me it wasn’t my time to ring the office or go to heaven, so I did what I was commanded and turned it off. But my newfound joy turned to a sinking feeling when I realised the awful truth that my wallet was lying, or at least was hopefully lying, back on the supermarket checkout. As if to drive home my predicament, the pump made a satisfied clunk to signify I’d loaded a full tank of petrol.
I walked into the kiosk, nervous, but knowing that at least now I had God by my side.
I poured the contents of a zippered bag I kept in the glove compartment onto the counter in front of the man. ‘What’s this?’ He looked horrified.
‘5p pieces,’ I said. ‘I save them whenever I get them. You’d be simply amazed to see how quickly they add up. You’ll find there’s £4.65. It’s all I’ve got. Consider it a down-payment.’
‘Oh, no, no, no, no, no,’ tutted the man.
‘No?’ I said.
‘No,’ said the man.
‘It’s legal tender,’ I said.
‘It’s a bloody joke, that’s what it is. Take them back to the fairground, Mr Penny, bloody, Arcade. They won’t fit in my drawer for one thing, andfor a second, you owe me £44.57.’
I tried to look pious. I felt I had the Lord with me, after all. I thought the man might benefit from some wisdom so suggested to him that, ‘The love of money is the root of all kinds of evils- Timothy, verses 6 to 10.’
The man glared at me. ‘Hey, you’re the clown with the mobile phone on the forecourt. £44.57. Tosser.’
I looked him in the eye. ‘Whoever despises his neighbour is a sinner, but blessed is he who is generous to the poor. Proverbs 14:21.’ I trusted this would appeal to his holier side.
He sat up in his chair. ‘Whoever tries to take the piss gets a punch up the bracket. Gary, Fingers 1…’ He stuck one middle digit in the air, ‘…or 2.’ He waved a combination of the two fingers he had in mind for me in my face. ‘Your choice. Now, have you got the money to pay in something other than nuts and bolts, or not?’
‘Not,’ I admitted. ‘I do have a boot full of groceries though.’
‘Groceries?’
‘Yes, I bought them this morning. Brand new.’
‘Bully for you. Why the bloody hell would I want to know about your groceries?’
‘I though maybe you could take £44.57’s worth of them – £45 even – for your trouble.’
He thought for a second or two, then his eyes widened. ‘Got any cheese? I love cheese. I’m not saying I could eat £45’s worth. Well, I probably could. Maybe £20’s worth, hmm, some Shropshire Blue and a fine Crottin de Chavignol with Jacobs and a bottle of Chablis. I left my lunch at home and I’m on a 12-hour shift. Then how about some cocktail sausages, and a box of Bendicks for tonight, and a ripe Roi de Trefle camembert for tommorrow’s breakfast. Oh, and I’m right out of washing powder: Fairy Non-Bio. Powder, mind – I don’t get on with those liquitabs.’
I nodded eagerly throughout his shopping list, mentally totting up the value, confident that God, my new holy friend, will have divinely stocked all of his desires in my carrier bags despite my certainty that I had not purchased a single one of these items at Sainsburys that morning.
I strode back to the car. Once I’d settled up with the man, I decided, God clearly thinks I should go to the office and resign. What a day this was becoming. Nothing could go wrong.
–
Esther Chilton 
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