Hunting

A perch some 20 feet up a backyard tree offers a peek into every manner of activity in the neighborhood. One guy in a uniform sets down his running leaf-blower, backs into a bush, squats and relieves himself. Another guy wearing pastel and khaki rides tight circles on his mower; his facial contortions suggest he’s singing his ass off. A woman washes dishes at her kitchen sink. A man grills on his deck and searches for me in the treeline. This is urban hunting. And it sucks. All the way around. But here’s the truth: it’s necessary – for hunters, for homeowners, for the community and our economy. New York City infamously invested $6 million in taxpayer funds to give bucks vasectomies As a hunter, the suck starts when you pull into a stranger’s driveway.

Tried and tested Sir: Your otherwise excellent leading article opposing proposed restrictions on jury trials (‘Judge not’, 29 November) misses two important points against the proposals. First, one can go much further than pointing to 3,000 days of unused capacity. The capacity itself can be expanded quite readily. It was once normal for courts to sit on Saturdays. Moreover, the court day once started at 9 a.m. and, after a break for supper, could go on well into the late evening – the ‘black cap at midnight’ is not a myth. The modern court day is 10.30 to 4.30, with an hour for lunch. A 9.30 to 5.30 day would add another 40 per cent capacity. Including Saturdays would increase capacity by 68 per cent.

Pop stars rock on nowadays into their seventies. And jockeys too – despite the physical dexterity and instant-decision-making required – are lasting longer. Jimmy Quinn and Franny Norton only quit the saddle in their mid-fifties; Joe Fanning is still going strong at 55. On a sweltering Ascot day recently I enjoyed a chat with John Egan, who was handling the heat better than much younger rivals and is still in demand at 56. Remembering past successes, including the Irish 2000 Guineas on Indian Haven, July Cups on Les Arcs and Passive Pursuit and an Ebor Handicap on 100-1 shot Mudawin, I asked if there was a particular race he still hankered after winning. Egan smiles easily but the answer was a pistol shot: ‘I want to win them all.

Rwanda It had been more than 30 years, yet I recognised the church and its surroundings instantly. Superimposed on the tidy green sward of today, I recalled the rags, shoes and corpses I saw here in May 1994. There are gaps in my memories of Rwanda. But the parts I do recall are explosively vivid, as if branded on my retina, like those people outside the church. They’d lost heads and limbs and every-body was dead, but the scene was alive. I could see and hear their last moments. A woman lay in my path, on her back with her gingham skirt hitched up around her thighs. Not much flesh left on her skeleton, her hair sloughing off, her face and frame frozen at the end of her rape, when her attacker shot her in the heart.

Paris What possible crime has the award-winning novelist Boualem Sansal committed that merits being locked away for three months now by the Algerian police? Listen to the Algerian government – and its cheerleaders on social media – and theanswer appears to be that he is at best a stooge for the French far right, at worst an outright traitor. Friends of the man paint another picture: a gently spoken free-thinker with the courage to speak his mind. Sansal, who is 80 and suffers from cancer, was arrested at Algiers airport on 16 November as he got off a plane from Paris. He has been in an Algiers prison ever since, with visits to hospital for treatment. His Parisian lawyer, François Zimeray, has still not been given a visa, so the charges are unclear.

Growing problem Sir: The first leading article of the year (‘Growing apart’, 4 January) points to the gap in economic growth between the US and the UK, while the first cover piece (‘Shift key’) identifies a shift rightwards in values and voting intention, in reaction to the bigger state model of Keir Starmer’s government. Sandwiched between the two is ‘Reeves’s new year’s resolution’, in which James Heale tells us of the Labour Growth Group, a WhatsApp group with 99 MPs that is only marginally more credible than a Turkeys for Christmas cabal. Have these Labour MPs studied the research cited in Jon Moynihan’s excellent Return to Growth? Has Rachel Reeves?

When I was a teenager, my closest friend, Henry, would vanish into the Shropshire Hills over the hunting season’s weekends. When he returned, it was with a wind-beaten face, wearing the traditional beagler’s white breeks and green socks, with a leather hunting whip slung over his shoulder. I knew nothing of this world, until one late autumnal Saturday he invited me to join him. As I watched the beagle pack race across the landscape, I realised I had stepped into a magical event, a hunting scene from a medieval tapestry brought to life. I was hooked. To this day, many sporting Christians throughout Europe honour St Hubert with songs and prayers after a hunt Beagling was my entry into field sports, but soon the door might be closed to others.