The thrill of the chase

Sir! (Oh no! Not you again... Ed)

This is not the first time I've sought recourse to write to you (or the second, or the third, or the fourth... and so on ad infinitum... Ed.) on the depths of moral depravity into which this island has plummeted.

However, on this occasion it is not the moral depravity of this putrefying cesspit in the Mediterranean which concerns me, I've almost given up on that. (I'll believe that when I see it... Ed.). No, today I wish to berate you - and all who sail under you - on the latest piece of claptrap to emerge from Castille... or some such mental institution. I hear, and my hearing is still excellent, even if the old eyesight is a mite squiffy... and I here and now apologise unreservedly to that poor woman I happened to shoot accidentally while hunting in Buskett last week. Fortunately her injuries were superficial... a superficially blown-away spleen, five superficially shattered ribs, superficial multiple contusions and a superficially decimated liver.

Mind you, she was partly to blame: Whatever possessed the silly cow to wear grey while skulking in Buskett? From where I stood she looked exactly like a charging rhino... about the right size too. Where was I? (Potting rhinos in Buskett... Ed.) Oh yes, I hear that the powers that be, in cahoots with that other perfidious quango, the EU, are doing all they can to stop the hunting of big-game during the spring season. How dare they!

Can you believe it? I mean why only spring? If they are determined enough and fool enough to attempt any restriction, why not go the whole hog and ban it all year round? And a fat lot of good may it do them. Tell me, who, for God's sake, is going to take the slightest bit of bloody notice? Not me, for starters! (No, I'd sort of anticipated that... Ed.)

For goodness' sake! When the good lady wife and I were tiger topping out of Poona, every time a tiger charged us, we certainly didn't pause to check our calendar before letting the beast have it... right between the eyes.

And a finer shot never pulled on a pair of reinforced cami-knicks than the good lady wife. She was always a wonderful shot... for a female, that is. In her day the GLW was a match for any man when it came to big game. Oh yes, in her prime it was said she could break a buzzard's beak with a blow of her nose. Wonderful woman... if a little frayed around the edges these days. But I digress... (No, surely not... Ed.)

Who on God's earth saw fit to attempt the curtailment of man's most primeval pursuit, the procurement of big game for food or trophy?

And on that latter point, my trophy room at my ancestral home of Gunblasting would be considerably barer were it not for the stuffed heads (seven wildebeest, nine Bengal tigers, three Indian elephants, 18 gazelle, 12 okapi, eight beaters and a game warden) that adorn its four walls. And each and every one of them shot... in the spring hunting season.

Do the authorities know what they do? Do they care? Are they aware that countless deprived hunters could be losing their right to massacre a rapidly dwindling number of so-called protected species?

Whatever possessed these people to attempt to curtail a healthy - for the hunters, life-enhancing, also for the hunters - practice, that is man's God-given right? The thrill of the chase... the satisfaction of a massacre efficiently performed. No wonder this squalid little rock in the armpit of Europe is losing the ability to spawn a generation of gentlemen... gentlemen who have inherited the right to bear arms all-year-round, Sir!

Oh, will nobody save me from these fools!

Yours in apoplectic rage,

Brig. D.G Hardly-Breathing Gatt... KOMR (retd).