Where can you read about a monstrous cheese big enough to hold a girl of 13 inside? Or that the invention of the bicycle directly, and poorly, impacted sales of cheddar? Or that some of the first cheese makers hid gold coins inside their wheels of dairy as a sales tool?

Sir John Collings Squire (1884 -1958) was Editor and founder of The London Mercury. He established himself as a talker, drinker, habitué of clubs, and man about town. His championship of English cheeses reflected a lifelong love of all things rural and traditional. All these were threatened by modern life and Squire fought for their preservation in verse and prose. The cheese board was a battleground in miniature. His homage to English cheese also reflected his desire not to take the snobbery of French gastronomy too seriously.