The sport of kings...

Actually - the sport of kings is actually horse racing - but I am SO excited for the summer to arrive - so that I can practice my newest sport love: CHEESE RACING. I also love Bocce ball and Jarts. Basically I love lawn games.

And how did I ever live without CHEESE RACING? Are you new to CHEESE RACING, too? Well - basically the rules are thus: (from the official Cheese Racing website)

What do you think happens when you throw a slice of processed cheese (without removing the plastic wrapping) onto a lit barbeque?

The plastic melts giving off highly toxic fumes and you are left with a pretty grim cheese/plastic mess welded on to your BBQ, right?

WRONG!

Unbelievably what actually happens, as discovered by the pioneers and inventors of the sport way back in 1997 (read their account of that historic night on a campsite in Osmington here), is that the plastic pouch does not melt - even when the cheese inside eventually boils! Even more incredibly, as the cheese melts and the strange chemicals found in processed cheese turn to gas - the plastic pouch inflates until eventually all four corners lift off the BBQ and the pouch is fully inflated! Now under this pressure you might think that the pouch would eventually burst - but no - most of the time the seal remains intact!

Quite why processed cheese manufacturers choose to use such industrial strength, heat proof plastic to encase their products is something of a mystery - as is why NASA don't use this material instead of those expensive heat proof tiles on the space shuttle? Such important questions no doubt occurred to the first observers of this phenomenon on that night in Osmington, but that didn't stop them from coming up with a brilliantly simple sport based on it.

So there you have it - and honestly I don't know how I ever passed a summer without having a great, old fashioned cheese race.

You are all invited to my first cheese race event - which is not officially sanctioned by CRASS (Cheese Racing Association) but I hope by the end of the 2008 Tournament we'll be good to go. So - mark your calendars for Monday, June 9. More details will come - but I will provide the cheese and the heat - you just bring a team name and yell (required) and we'll have a grand old time.