Harmless Hunters

People have always hunted. They have hunted for the sport of it and to acquire the iron discipline it requires. They have hunted for the thrill of the chase and for the camaraderie it fosters. They have hunted to cull, to protect agriculture (and often themselves) and for food. Hunting endangered wildlife has long been banned by all but the crassest nations; this is right and appropriate. But to equate the shooting of game with slaughtering endangered species is both risible and monstrous. Recently, Prince Charles and the Duke of Cambridge, both passionate advocates for the protec- tion of wildlife, spent a hunting weekend on a private estate in Spain. In doing so they attracted the opprobrium of the singer, Morrissey, who losing logic, reason, proportion and syntax all at the same time, ranted; “William is too thickwit realise that animals such as tigers and rhinos are only driven to near extinction because people who are precisely like himself — have shot them off the map.” The fact that the princes were, perfectly legally, shooting deer and wild boar did not deter Morrissey from spitefully adding that he could “only pray to God that their guns backfire in their faces”. In fairness, however, Morrissey knows a thing or two about self-inflicted injuries; his last hit is older than Joan River’s first facelift. has warned we face a contagion of anorexia. Another cabal has decreed that obesity is the new plague and sugar to be the new tobacco, a ticking time-bomb of blubber triggering a pandemic of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Their findings prompted Keith Vaz, the Labour MP who is so fat it takes two dogs to bark at him — but not so huge he can’t leap to conclusions — to demand that schools ban sugar altogether. A different study concludes that drinkers suffer a 30% increased risk of skin cancer. Yet other new research has judged thirdhand cigarette smoke as “deadly” as a real cigarette. What the scientists can’t get into their thick skulls and out of their flatulent mouths is that we will all eventually snuff it; some after a life of happy hedonism, others despite a regime of austere abstinence. Let us ignore these merchants of misery; it’s time for a fag, a bottle of wine, a juicy steak and a sticky toffee pudding. Or two.