Hunted down for an exclusive interview: Mr Fox

In an unusual, perhaps unprecedented break with tradition, one of the unsung heroes of the festive season across the British countryside, Mr Charlie Fox, has exclusively agreed to answer a few questions for readers of 'The Independent'.

I opened the interview by suggesting that some people may find it surprising that a fox is giving interviews at this particular moment in time.

"And why would that be, pray? Because your newspaper's readers cling to the belief that only humans can think and communicate? As it happens, we foxes are highly sophisticated when it comes to using the mass media."

"I was actually referring to the timing of our meeting. Boxing Day must be, not to put too fine a point on it, something of a busy time for you."

"What with people all over the country celebrating the season by trying to kill us, you mean? I do my best not to let that put a dampener on the holiday, although I must confess that it's typical of the cussedness of humans that you choose the very moment when foxes are having fun – half-eaten turkeys in the dustbins, people too pissed to lock up their hens properly – and then set about spoiling it all."

"Still, you must be pleased that this is something of a red-letter day for you. Almost certainly it will be the last Boxing Day on which fox-hunting as we know it will take place. Next year, because of the legislation currently before Parliament, it will be more or less like any other day for you."

"Yes, it will be very odd without the noise, the silly uniforms, the smell of violence in the air."

"Obviously, you feel strongly about those who hunt you."

"Of I don't mean them, you bloody fool. It's the other lot, rushing across the countryside in khaki and balaclavas, frightening the horses and leaving that disgusting aniseed stuff all over the place. It's messy, it's silly and it's very undignified."

"That will surprise many of our readers who will have assumed that you would have greatly appreciated the efforts of animal rights campaigners on your behalf. Would you go so far as to say that, if you were, for example, a human Member of Parliament..."

"Good lord, what a revolting thought."

"...then you would actually vote against the bill concerning hunting with dogs?"

"Why dogs, eh? Is it beyond them to get the terminology right? They are not dogs, but hounds. They don't bark, they give tongue. What's more, we foxes don't have a tail but a brush, and we don't live in a hole but in an earth. When we return home, we are not going down a burrow but going to ground, pursued not by people in red coats but in hunting pink."

"So foxes are traditionalists, then."

"Foxes are different from one another. You happen to be speaking to Charlie Fox, who has agreed to give you his own personal views. As it happens, I am in the public relations business – I'm a sort of Max Clifford of the fox world, only brighter and considerably more attractive."

"What many readers of The Independent are anxious to know is whether, from the fox's point of view, hunting is cruel."

"Now what do you think? That being pursued across the country with a pack of hounds up your arse is a fox's idea of having a really good time?"

"So you agree with the anti-hunt campaigners on that, at least?"

"On the other hand, and speaking personally here, I do find the alternatives rather less attractive. Poisoning, trapping, being wounded by some tosser who thinks that a fox can be killed by a 12-bore – on the whole, these things cause considerably more discomfort than being hunted."

"But they are all less visible."

"Precisely, and I can see why that would appeal to human beings. You lot are quite happy to eat meat or poultry or fish that has involved animals being crammed into lorries and transported hundreds of miles to slaughterhouses or being factory-farmed, but the sight of a hedgehog with a broken leg gives you a complete nervous breakdown. Morally you humans are in a complete muddle."

"Those who oppose hunting argue that it should not be done for sport."

"Yet, oddly, it is hunting's non-sporting aspects that are the most cruel. When our families are young, you surround a wood, send in the hounds and, if some cub tries to escape, it is frightened back to its death. And then some fox hunts block up earths or even capture us and release us in front of the hounds. That is certainly not my idea of sport."

"Of course, the farmers want to see that the fox population is under control."

"They do. That's why, personally, I worry about what will happen in some parts of the countryside if hunting is banned. You see, with a ban on hunting with hounds, people will not only continue to kill us by whatever means possible, but will also take down the hedgerows and woods that cost them money to maintain."

"Charlie Fox, thank you – and take care of yourself."

"I always do that."

terblacker@aol.com