100 YEARS OLD AND STILL NOT TOTALLY CHEESED OFF...

AYOUNG lady just telephoned and informed me that 40 per cent of people would rather give up chocolate than cheese. I pondered the information then asked whether this might, in her opinion, be somehow connected with the fact that 40 per cent of people have suffered thefts of food at work.

“Might it not be possible,” I suggested, “that all those people have had their cheese stolen which has made them so desperate they are willing to renounce chocolate to get a replacement or perhaps just to stop the same thieves from nicking their chocolates too?”

“It could be, I suppose,” she said non-committally. “It’s from a survey about cheese that Asda has just done for National Chocolate Week.”

I thought about asking why they’d done a survey on cheese for National Chocolate Week but decided to let that one go.

Then she went on: “We also found that 37 per cent of people would rather give up dining out than cheese.”

“That’s just silly,” I said, “for 37 per cent of children think that we will be living on another planet in the future. Surely if we are living on another planet one would have to give up both cheese and chocolate. I hardly think we’ll be taking cows and sheep and goats and cocoa plantations with us. Not to begin with, anyway.”

“And 46 per cent of people would rather give up beer than cheese,” she persisted.

“But 46 per cent of women wear bags on one side of their body and 46 per cent of shoppers would rather pay more than see their favourite snack shrink in size,” I pointed out.

“I suppose if the snacks have shrunk in size, that just leaves more room for the cheese but I really can’t see why they don’t carry the cheese and small snacks in their bags on one side of their body while holding a bottle or two of beer on the other to balance it.”

“Well 49 per cent of people say cheese is one of their favourite foods,” she told me.

“And 49 per cent of dogs are overweight,” I said. “It’s probably from all that chocolate they’ve been scoffing and beer they’ve been lapping up which their owners have given up for cheese. Don’t these people know that chocolate is poisonous to dogs?

“Surely it would be better giving them pieces of cheese. Also I should point out that 49 per cent of people consider it a defining British characteristic to offer a cup of tea as an all-purpose remedy. I can see them now: the poor dog is suffering from chocolate poisoning and they offer it a cup of tea. Outrageous!”

“I don’t know about dogs dying,” she said, making a tenuous link, “but 16 per cent of people say they could not live without cheese.”

“And 16 per cent of people in a relationship say differing interests are the biggest cause of tension,” I said. “I expect that one of them likes cheese to the point of killing themselves if they can’t have it and the other one can’t understand such a level of obsession with daily food.”

And that’s where we left it.