The simple pleasures of a grouse shoot
Red Grouse © Alastair Rae via Flikr
Ludovic Kennedy, who died last week, loved shooting – in particular, he said in an article reprinted in The Spectator, grouse shooting.
The reasons were many. "Going to some of the wildest and most beautiful country in Britain where the emptiness lasts for miles; the look and smell of the heather; the dust of it on one's shoes, during the short time it is in bloom; the company of like-minded people and friendly, efficient dogs; the skills required." Above all, he loved the quarry itself, "a bird so wild that no one has succeeded in breeding it in captivity, dead, the most toothsome of all game birds to eat".
Yet, as Kennedy says, it's a costly business keeping up a grouse moor, which is why most owners, even the richest, let out their moors "to even richer foreigners" for the first few weeks of the season. "With luck," said Kennedy, "the foreigners will miss far more than they hit", thereby leaving the owners themselves with plenty of grouse for them and their friends to shoot.
But while grouse may be the best quarry, most of us who shoot spend much more time with pheasant or partridge in our sights than we do on Scottish or Yorkshire moors. And very enjoyable that can be too: the simple rhythm of the day adds to the fun, the lining up before each drive and chatting to your neighbour before the birds come over, the elevenses of hot soup, the nursery food for lunch...
Not all shoots are like this. According to Simon Mills in the Evening Standard, Richard Caring's shoot on the Somerset-Devon border is known as "the Vegas of the shooting world", with the guests even invited "to wear Lakes-branded tweeds" – the estate is known as the Lakes – and everything done to excess.
At one drive, which takes place over water from custom-made pontoons, "outdoor speakers belt out loud classical music, while guns bang away at birds overhead in the style of Apocalypse Now". One guest was horrified to see a captain of industry boldly lighting up a cigar mid-slaughter with a £20 note. "'It was an insensitive thing to do; especially when you consider that the going rate for a beater is about £20 a day.'"
I suppose it is the feeling that Caring is a vulgar townie which prompted someone to shoot two of his stags recently with a .22 rifle and dump them on his doorstep. But if anything might prompt sympathy for the perma-tanned restaurant tycoon, it is surely a moronic gesture like this. Shooting is, after all, an artificial sport with the birds bred to be shot, so we can't be too precious about it. If Caring wants to shoot them with loud music playing, then let him.
A breakfast fit for a Queen
Splashing out is not the Queen's style. After the revelation that she keeps her cereal in Tupperware containers, we now learn that she has her breakfast delivered to her in bed each morning on an old, shabby tea tray with mismatched crockery. According to the Daily Mail, she always has tea, white toast, butter and jam, and sometimes an oat biscuit, delivered to her bedroom by 8am, along with the morning papers. Good for her.
Tabloid money... Jordan's got what it takes to front the EU
• A horror movie shot on a shoestring "has laid a ghoul-den egg", says The Sun. Paranormal Activity took a week to make and cost just £9,000. It has already earned £5m and is now third at the US box office. Oren Peli, 39, who directed and wrote the film, has had little experience with a video camera and used his own house in California as the set. His two 'stars', who operated the camcorder for 90% of the shoot, were paid just £300 each. The film portrays the torment faced by a couple who believe they are haunted, and was inspired by Oren's former girlfriend, who was troubled by noises in the night (the noises were made, it turned out, by the ice-maker in the kitchen).
• Frank Field is the right's favourite Labour MP, "the saintly maverick who crusades against welfare spongers", says Brian Reade in the Daily Mirror. "Yet when a distinguished civil servant has the balls to do the same to Westminster spongers, Field is apoplectic. How dare I be punished for exceeding a £3,000-a-year housekeeping limit on my second home, he squeals. Well, why not ask your neighbours in that same Birkenhead terraced street what they spend on housekeeping? And while you're at it, ask those who fill in tax returns what they'd expect to happen to them if, like you, they claimed twice for three bills."
• "David Milliband says Tony is the right person to be Emperor of Europe because his stature is such that he would require massive motorcades that would stop the traffic," writes Fergus Shanahan in The Sun. "Well, Jordan would stop the traffic too. Fans overwhelmed a shop in Gateshead's MetroCentre when she arrived to launch yet another book.The qualifications for being an EU president are having a lot of front and being able to screw money out of a gullible public. Give Katie the job."
