After an illustrious 183-year run, the annual Whitsun cheese-rolling event on Cooper’s Hill in Gloucester has been canceled, partly for safety reasons. Add “chasing cheese wheels down a steep hill” to the list of things that England has deemed unsafe.
Jeebus, you’d that after 183 years, cheese-rolling would have attained something like cultural icon status, to the point where no one would even consider canceling it. After all, people have chased cheese wheels down a hill in England for long enough now that the tradition has been handed from generation to generation. At this point, if people want to risk committing public suicide by chasing a wheel of cheese down a hill…well, why not? It makes for great television, and it sure beats the Hell out of death by cop, no? Does tradition mean nothing anymore? And, after 183 years, they’re just now figuring out that chasing a wheel of cheese down a steep hill might not be the safest way to kill some free time?