At the risk of pouring petrol on the flames, if someone were to write a contemporary hunting song and it was good, I'd be happy to sing it.
I have every respect for Kat's views, and she clearly lives a lifestyle in accordance with her ethical framework (which is more than many of us can achieve), but I shoot and fish and I have hunted in the past. I know in some circles that's tantamount to admitting to a penchant for paedophilia and neo-Nazism, and it has brought me some grief from colleagues in the Labour Party, but I'm afraid that's what I am, and that's what I do. One of the reasons I don't hunt is that in the south of England, where I live, most hunts have been hikacked by social climbers, would-be aristos and crashing snobs who embody so much that is bad about British society.
That, however, is only part of the picture - albeit the picture that is most often seen by the public.
One of the things that has saddened me about much of the pro-hunting lobbying currently under way in the UK is how it has failed to galvanise really popular support and instead has used spurious arguments to further the views of this narrow minority (as well has being hijacked by rabid anti-government types and the nastier elements of the far right, including the BNP).
Yet there are communities for whom hunting is still an elemental part of life, and their voice is not heard - or if it is, it's parenthsised in a patronising way by Daily Telegraph feature writers.
I'm no great shakes as a songsmith, but I would love someone to write a modern hunting song which had passion and beauty and I would be happy to sing it.
For, as said above, even if we don't approve of something, keeping and singing a song about it is an important historical document - and history hasn't come to a stop yet.
That's my two-pennorth, and I don't mind being flamed for it. Personally, I have already experienced hostility in some quarters when I've sung hunting songs - though rarely when singing songs about whaling, adultery, murder or war.