Leading article: Smell isn't everything

"You simply cannot bring together a country," as President de Gaulle famously once said, "that has over 265 kinds of cheese." Since then France has added at least 40 more types as their urge to elaborate has taken flight.

But the question for us on this side of the Channel is whether we need them all over here, or even a few dozen of them. For that is what a couple of brave Alsatian entrepreneurs seem to feel as they start up Britain's first cheese restaurant in London. They have them in France, why not here?

Well, hold your chevaux. In the first place, there's no shortage of cheese on the English menus. Just drop in any pub and look at the bar food. In the second place, there's no shortage of British cheese either.

If it's pong you want, then of course the Continentals may score. But if it's the firm flavour of a matured truckle, then forget the fancy ways of the French and tuck into cheddar and pickle, in between two wedges of white.