No More Hunting in T Minus 3 Hours
As of midnight tonight the barbaric "hobby" of fox hunting is finally banned in England, so the news was saturated with outside broadcasts from a mix of resigned last-ever hunts and determined last-legal hunts. The resigned people have cunning alternatives involving artifical fox scent and running around in the woods for a day, which seems like it would work just as well without the scent and dogs; and the defiant people are telling the world about all of the loopholes they've found and that no amount of prison and fining will stop them hunting foxes with dogs.
What strange people. So far the best argument for hunting foxes is that it's "an age-old tradition" (the argument about keeping fox numbers under control as they are pests doesn't really work with me, when many weekends they don't actually kill any foxes), so I presume these are the same people who want to bring back public hanging, slavery, child beating, no voting for women, and other "age-old traditions" which have been recently stopped.
Most amusing were the people moaning about the changes to their lives after the ban. Future circulation of Horse and Hound is unpredicable (unless it turns into an underground hunting magazine, Foxx 'n' Hounz), shops selling hunting gear have seen a 90% drop in sales, but the most amusing (in a dark way) was the man who claimed he'd have to shoot all 90 of his hounds and he doesn't want to. I'm pretty sure there is a better solution to surplus dogs: giving away/selling them as pets maybe (assuming they don't chase and kill other animals, like domestic cats), or even selling them to people in other countries where fox hunting is practised. I hear the south of France is getting ready for a boom in fox hunting from British people, and frankly they are welcome to them.
NP: Sketches of Spain, Miles Davis
