Flat Earth: Pig of a job for the Household Cavalry

THE news that wild boar are loose in Kent, and likely to remain so, should be of great interest to the military. It offers splendid employment for the redundant jockeys of the Household Cavalry. We noted that local farmers mistakenly, and dangerously, thought they could knock out the brutes with a shotgun. This is no way to kill a wild boar, as our agents in India and Pakistan have messaged us in horror. The boar has to be stabbed through the heart.

The sport of pig-sticking, in which men on horseback run the boar down and kill it with a lance, kept our army in India on its toes for 200 years. It gives boar and man an equal chance - especially in Kent where there are more obstacles than open ground. An alternative, which would give work to the county's unemployed, is to tackle the beast on foot, when it comes out at night to root. You need scores of people to channel him towards your pack of dogs, which will hold him at bay while the huntsman administers the coup de grace with a stake.

We can't see the anti-bloodsports people presenting a problem. There is nothing cuddly about wild boars.