The first time I went into a specialist cheese shop, in Edinburgh,
I thought that with the rich blend of smells that wafted
from the doorway was an olfactory metaphor for Heaven.
I nearly fainted, but then I am quite sensitive.
Now I read about belief but am never sure what to believe,
because the labels for different beliefs multiply and divide
with the least amount of open discussion. But if any deity
were to listen to how through prescriptive descriptions
we flail and flop toward the art of communication,
and end up dividing from each other, becoming selectively deaf,
such a god would recall the humour of General Charles De Gaulle,
on becoming President;'How can anyone run a nation
that has two hundred and forty six* different kinds of cheese?'.
*the actual number of cheeses in France is nearer four hundred.
Le Grand Charlot was making one of his rare jokes.
ReplyDeleteMost of the hundreds of French cheeses are local variants of no more (and perhaps fewer) than 20 types.