Cheese Rolling and Flaming Torches

The ancient pastime of cheese rolling was in the headlines this weekend when the annual cheese rolling contest at Cooper's Hill in Gloucestershire was cancelled because of concerns over the sizes of the crowd turning out to see the event. It was refreshing that no one was concerned about potential injury to the participants (or the cheeses) and that the problem simply related to issues of traffic and crowd control.

The Cooper's Hill cheese rolling dates back at least 200 years. The rules are...