Grouse get theirs as Glorious 12th starts

GROUSE were quaking in their tartan boots as the Glorious 12th dawned on the purple heather moors of my own Bonny Scotland today.

For today is the start of the Scottish grouse shooting season, when haggis-stuffed and whisky sodden McPeasants make the unfortunate wee birds take to the skies for the wealthy folk with fancy shotguns from London to shoot at.

The grouse - the plural is not grice - are then airlifted not to Royal Society for the Protection of Birds triage units, but to swanky London restaurants for other folk to eat, complete with shotgun pellets.

Newspaper the Scotsman says that prospects are poor this year because young red grice population figures have slumped by a third. But the business is worth around £17 million a year and employs 1,000 McPeasants, so it's good for our country, argues Andrew Brouse Wooton in the Scotsman today. µ