Raising the Hunt - North London rhyming slang.

Setting my jaw firmly against current political and social trends I am thinking of raising The Hornsey Hunt. Many readers must be perturbed by the growing numbers of urban foxes in N8. Now I'm not one to encourage blood sports but it is getting out of hand and the time has come to take action.

Our local variety of fox is not pretty like the sweet little things with pert noses that for centuries have been harassed all over rural England by inebriated minor royals, Daily Mail readers and the nouveaux riche before being torn to bits by slavering hounds. No. The denizens of Crouch End are scrawny, dirty and furtive. They have hate in their eyes and misbehaviour on their perverted minds. They rip bin liners apart for rotten pizza scraps and make noises in the night like a two-year-old child whose fingers are being crushed in a vice. Apparently this is love-making.

Woken by their wailing recently I parted the curtains to a scene that resembled a vulpine version of Fellini's Satyricon. There was an orgy in progress in the street. Two of them were so crazed by sexual desire that the chap, still engaged, had lifted one leg right over his conquest and there they stood, back to back and immobilised in the middle of the road, making the eight-legged-animal-with-two-heads. What has the neighbourhood come to?

Well, I tell you, I'm up to here with it. There must be one or two out-of-work stable hands, farriers and masters of the hounds at a loose end after the recent law change so I am sure we could get some experienced help at a cheap rate. It's time for all concerned Crouch Enders to don their pinks, take up their horns and ride to hounds.

Horses might be a problem so I was thinking that we could use Vespas, mountain bikes and those little metal scooters that were so trendy four years ago. We shouldn't limit the pack to trained beagles either. There are domestic cats and dogs in the area that would surely rise to the challenge. I've been bitten by several of them.

I can picture it now: the loving cup being enjoyed outside the King's Head of a Sunday lunchtime before the motley ride forth to seek out their prey

Tally Ho!