Faux Hunting

On my drive home this afternoon I heard an NPR story on some English guy who has memorized the entirety of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  That is pretty impressive, don't you think?

Anyway, inevitably the conversation went in a direction that compared Chaucer's England, Victorian England and modern day England.  They came to the conclusion that today's England resembled that of the England in Chaucer's stories rather than the prudish, manners-obsessed England described in works by Jane Austin.  

The journalist visited a part of England that was considered to be more conservative than its more urban counterparts where discussions of pole dancing and fox hunting ensued.  They interviewed a few people about to embark on a hunt.  If you are not aware, there has been a ban on fox hunting in the U.K. since 2004.  Thus, there was a clarification that no foxes were actually being hunted but rather hoards of people got on horse back and pretended to hunt the foxes in, what I would assume would be, an attempt to preserve tradition.  

Then the bitching started!  

It's those liberal urbanites who don't understand the plight of us rural folk.  Fox hunting is a tradition and don't forget, it serves a purpose, to control the fox populations.  

Jesus Christ, just own up to the to the fact that you like killing foxes.  If it is fox population control that you are worried about, lobby the government for animal control.

Oh, and traditions (google octopus twirl) get outlawed all the time so cry me a river, build a bridge and get over it.