All Cheese Great & Small - Alex James - A Life Less Blurry

"I was hanging around the pigsty in the way I’d previously hung around at The Groucho Club. I felt wonderfully connected, grounded in the real world, standing in pig muck".

Following fifteen years in Blur, Alex James did two wild, unexpected things. He fell in love and he bought a farm. All Cheeses Great and Small is a critically acclaimed book charting his transition from bassist in Blur to gentleman farmer, artisan cheese-maker and father of five. Honest, funny and reflective, it captures a very different kind of adventure beyond Britpop.

All Cheeses Great and Small tells the story of what came next, as he left behind the chaos of the Britpop years and began a new life in the Cotswolds with his wife and growing family. What started as a change of pace quickly became a full immersion into farming, animals and the realities of rural life, set against the beauty and rhythm of the English countryside.

From early experiments in artisan cheese-making to the daily rhythm of life on the farm, the book traces a shift from stage to fields, from touring schedules to livestock, and from music industry excess to something altogether more grounded. Along the way, the landscape itself becomes central, with rolling fields, changing seasons and the quiet detail of rural life shaping each day.

Written with humour and honesty, it reflects on identity, change and the unexpected pleasures of building a different kind of life, as a gentleman farmer, artisan cheese-maker and father of five, rooted in food, place and family.