Bored fox hunters, deprived of anything actually fun to do since important legislation deprived them of anything actually fun to do, are barmy for a new blood sport: reading The Mirror's Hunt for Maddy Forum.
"They're running riot twenty four hours a day! Never rest. An hour over there's like a lifetime of meets," offered Mrs. Homily Clock, Thorn Cottage, Little Remorse, Barks. "Really, if the fox had it half as bad as the parents do in that place, perhaps Blair had a point. Although I rather think not."
"My teenager calls it virtual blood sport," said Lady Margery Posh-Lovett, from her family house, Wooster Hall, West Port, Glost. "Of course I've no idea what he means, and pay less attention, but I must say, it does seem like the end of the hunt as I recall it."
In Upper Kilt, Hunt Master Retired Major General Oscar Sweeney-Todd agrees many of The Mirror Maddy posters would have made excellent harriers. "It's a dark day when a good dog is chained to the barn but these Burke and Hares run about unfettered. Although I will say I'd have given quite a lot to have some of them in the scrub in the good old days. You couldn't train a hound to savage like that."
