Even a subject like fox-hunting, a remote peripheral to most of our lives, has cropped up more than once for me to have to talk about. For all that I know that these thoughts all vanish on the wind and are forgotten by the listener in moments, I still always felt the need to find a different way of dealing with things, if for no other reason than preserving my own sanity. (Even non-Christians, uninvolved in the Christmas festivities, know there ain't no sanity clause)

For all the wit of Oscar Wilde, it will be good to hear less of the unspeakable pursuing the uneatable for a while, though it’s sure to rear its head again when the foxhunting bill gets debated in the Lords.

Perhaps they will be able to help me, but at the moment I’m rather confused as to what’s at issue here, and most of the talk seems to veil the truth rather than illuminate it. Are we talking about cruelty to animals or class war? Is this just a city way of seeing versus a country view of life? I’ve never hunted, but I find it hard to imagine it’s more brutal than the average David Attenborough documentary, with killer whales chomping on seals, and lions clawing zebras into pieces.

When our cat brings in mice, if they are still alive I throw them back into the garden for a second chance, but if she’s in the hunting mood there are usually bits of another one scattered around by morning. That killer instinct is in our dogs too, the wolves from which we tamed them still closer to the surface than some of us like to think about.

We are fascinated by animals hunting down prey, but none have the ruthlessness of that ultimate predator, the human. We love the thrill of killing so much that we do it to each other, and if we aren’t actually involved in a war we like to watch it on the movies. Perhaps we no longer have public executions, or the human blood sports of the Roman arena, but we still like to see death in the cinema. And if that’s not real enough we have reporters touring the globe, to bring back pictures of real suffering and dying for our delectation in the evening news.

Pain and death fascinate us because sooner or later they come to visit us all, and we have to face them up close and personal. But the worst fear we have to face will not be physical. Qur’an says “No man speaks a single word without a watcher by him pen in hand. And death’s agony comes with the Truth”. That’s when we see ourselves as others see us, and “That is what you were trying to avoid” says the Qur’an.