I'd suggest that most people decide whether or not a substance is cheese by taste and functional value as a foodstuff.

I love the idea of Folk Processed Cheese, and the wholesome rusticity implied by Cottage Cheese (which, in the words of Vic Reeves & Bob Mortimer, is not really a cheese but a residue, but a residue that is good for you) which, when pressed, is transformed into Farmer's Cheese, though I believe the Canadians have their own interpretation of that one.

Yesterday, being Good Friday, I bought myself a muckle braw block of Bowland, a particularly folksy cheese being a basic Creamy Lancashire enhanced by various sweet spices and fruits giving it character of, dare I say, fruitcake, though not one that could be said to be in any way discontented, or yet manifesting that discontent through any sort of complaint at all. On the contrary - for it is very good with chocolate, and when grilled on crumpets (Warburton's of course) the effect is akin to John J singing Thousand or More - which is to say, one is transported very much elsewhere, beyond the common realm certainly, even though that commonality is the core of Folk, which is, in any case, and I'm this I'm sure we'll all agree, better experienced than talked about. Rather like cheese.

Furthermore, I have been pretty much addicted to Gjetost, otherwise known as Gudbrandsdalsost, since a summer of 1969, a few weeks of which were spent in Norway, where I also acquired a lingering taste for the Eventyr of Absjorsen & Moe that form the core of my repertoire to this very day. My favourite Traditional English Song I refer to as Camembert Acoustique, which somehow acknowledges one of my favourite albums of all time and the fact that a certain Justly Renowned Singer of Traditional Folk Song & Balladry has been depicted wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the cover art. Cheese is mentioned in this song, along with other dairy produce, with the suggestion of sexual lubricant, so one might well ponder the type of cheese in question. Butter is famous in this respect of course, largely thanks to a 1973 film starring Marlon Brando, thus giving rise to my other name for this song Ultimo Tango a Wells-Next-The-Sea, which we visited last year on our Norfolk Holiday and were Much Impressed. Indeed, we had a notion that Butter and Cheese and All* would be a blinding name for a shop specialising in Norfolk dairy produce.

In our fridge right now are two other types of cheeses - a tub light Philadelphia (used mostly in cooking; goes well with pasta and spinach) and extra light Laughing Cow, my favourite cheese since childhood. Ten years ago if one collected the required number of tokens and sent them off with a postal order for 50p (or some such pittance) one would receive a Laughing Cow Alarm clock. Mine still has pride of place in my office, despite running a constant ten-minutes fast; the alarm, however, is the most un-cow-like laugh you might imagine, but then again never having actually heard a cow laugh I couldn't possibly say. Perhaps it samples an actual cow, laughing, in which case it is the perfect sound for this devilish little timepiece which is my pride and joy notwithstanding. I call her Henry Cow, after the band that never laughed, although the erstwhile drummer is credited with the Helsinki joke later used by Peter Blegvad in one of his Leviathan cartoons.

In the Miles Na Gopaleen Catechism of Cliché it is asked (and if I paraphrase I do so from memory) Which two substances are commonly held to be dissimilar?, to which the answer is, of course, Chalk and Cheese. I think perhaps some here like our Folk as Cheese, whilst others prefer Chalk. I can't think of too much to say about chalk, despite the lingering pedagogical associations which might well lead me down some other path, away from school as once I wondered, and am wandering still, happily astray, munching on a big block of Edam, and saving the wax to fashion into little red penguins as been my habit now for more than forty years.   

* For a video of my singing this song see : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3FRvTDWqnM, though Jim will no doubt find it more akin to bad pop singing than the True Folk it ought to be. For this I most assuredly do not apologise in advance.