Friday 17 April 2009

Recession Brings Another Silver Lining

The only time hunting and bankers should be together in a sentence is if it begins 'Over seven hundred bankers were chased across fields today by taxpayers carrying heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenades..'.
As that has yet to appear on the front page of the Independent, we will have to make do with the news that the bankers are refusing to sign up for the shooting season, forcing some commercial shoots out of business.
As if we needed another reason to hate the bankers, it seems that they were one of the largest groups that bankrolled the sick business of bravely blasting harmless creatures out the sky.
"Banks can no longer budget for it" said a shoot manager who had seen his business fold and faced a future in employment that didn't involve killing things for entertainment.
This recession has had a few silver linings and the closing down of hunting businesses is yet another thing to add to the woo-hoo list along with the fall of Estate Agents, SUV sales, Gordon Brown and the financial sectors abhorrent bonuses.
All i want to hear about now is the collapse of Manchester United, McDonald's and Celine Dion's singing career and i will consider declaring the recession a necessary evil.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

to have guns they would have to be criminals in the UK...

Q

Falling on a bruise said...

I'm not sure how they get around the gun laws, use some ancient law involving vermin control probably.

Nog said...

I don't know about y'all's selection of birds, but foxing is for sissies. Who needs a pack of dogs to chase a giant dog-rat thing?
I guess you killed off all of your bigger creatures a long time ago. Our problem in the States is that we kill the predators off and leave the prey to breed rampantly. There are more deer and birds in the States than there were in 1776. If anything we need to leave the coyotes and wolves (insofar as there are any wolves around) alone and focus on the rabbits, ducks, and deer. Otherwise we'll turn out like Australia.

And what is a "commercial hunt"? We have "hunting leases" here. Is this when a couple of work buddies lease someone's land and hunt on it while living out of an RV?

-Nog

Cheezy said...

I liked Dick Cheney's novel approach to hunting:

Step One - Dodge the draft (while remaining fully supportive of the war as an activity for others) to maximise your chances of surviving for another 30-odd years, which is when the hunt begins...
Step Two - Let a bunch of fat flightless birds out of a bag, and start loosing off some rounds of buckshot at the stupid things.
Step Three - Shoot an old man in the face.
Step Four - Get the aforementioned old man to apologise for getting in the way of your buckshot.

Falling on a bruise said...

A commercial shoot is a place that allows a bunch of people from a workplace with names like Cecil and Sebastian to come along, pay a few thousand pound and let them blast a few birds to make themselves feel manly.

If i recall, the old man Cheney shot in the face was a lawyer. Bonus.

Aaron said...

Are Cecil and Sebastian privileged names or something? I don't get it.

Falling on a bruise said...

Yes effay, Cecil and Sebastian and names of that ilk are usually the names given to children of the well to do.