MOG

It sounds from the description as if charges of robbery and common (common?) assault are excessive.

I find hunting cruel and barbaric, for my 2¢, but nothing I'd imprison a young man for (unless, perhaps, he had been caught doing this before, or foxes were on the verge of extinction). And if it's illegal, why is there something called "the Heythrop Hunt from Witney, Oxfordshire" organizing foxhunts (which are, as I understand it, rather elaborate rituals, with trumpets blowing loudly, bright and distinctive costumes, howling dogs, galloping horses, and mandatory drunkenness). It doesn't sound to me like they're fearful of the law.

And the two women Mr. Ferry "confronted"? Well, first off, this makes no sense at all unless they were trying to interfere in one way or another with the hunt. As I remarked previously, I hold hunting in low regard (culling, on the other hand, is ecologically beneficial if managed carefully, and I have no problem with it - my distaste for hunting does not stem from horror at the thought of animals dying), but not so low that I'd try to embarrass or provoke someone who was doing it, which I have virtually no doubt the women were doing. They'd have to call attention to themselves, and the fact that they were filming the hunt. These weren't just some idle strollers with a betacam, and they weren't paparazzi, and they weren't documentary filmmakers. They were - well, they almost had to have been - a couple of self-righteous, ideologically poisoned - forgive a rare instance of coarse language on my part here, but no other word will do, and I've been searching - assholes looking to cause trouble. I don't think Mr. Ferry was right to take their camera, but robbery? Come on. And from the language in this story (which I take, Toronno, to have come from a British newspaper article) it's very unlikely that he so much as raised his voice, let alone a fist, since anything like that would obviously have been jumped at immediately by this "reporter," and described as a "litany of blood-curdling tortures that Mr. Ferry, between shrieks of the most disgusting profanity and sacrilege, swore to put the poor, confused women through once he'd finished raping them," or something very like it. And I see nothing to suggest, by the way, that he ever intended to keep the camera - only to stop them from filming. To assert that he was doing the confronting demonstrates, at the very least, the reporter's serene faith in the stupidity of his readers.

But in terms of sheer obnoxiousness, the best is saved for the last paragraph. "Poor Otis"? Apart from ineptly attaching the same adjective, in the very next sentence, to the foxes whose rights he cares about so deeply, the reporter has abandoned all pretense of objectivity, or respect for his subject, his readers, or factuality. His goal is very simply to bring as much harm as possible to someone whose last name can be tied to the crime of being talented and successful. The reporter then goes on to tell us not what "Poor Otis" did, or said, or anything to which any degree of truth could be attached, but what his quarry "believes in." If this guy had been Otis Ferry's therapist since childhood, and possessed exceptional insight into the human mind, and if Otis had been diligently forthcoming and truthful, providing the most accurate possible descriptions of his feelings, his interests, his philosophical musings, his tastes - every facet of his mind and his soul that he could possibly bare - he still wouldn't have the temerity or presumption to declare what was going on in Mr. Ferry's mind at any given moment. Utterly deplorable. And just in case his readers, having by now struggled through six entire sentences, might have forgotten why anyone cares about this, Bryan Ferry - who had nothing whatsoever to do with it - is pulled in by the title of a song that most people would probably remember. Notice, by the way, the complete lack of taste, wit or imagination in his choice: "The Right Stuff"? It's got nothing to do with the story. "A Really Good Time" would have at least served to emphasize Otis Ferry's purported sadism; so would "The Thrill of It All" or "Bitters End." "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" would have reminded readers that Otis Ferry comes from a more comfortable and well-to-do household than they do; that he's younger and better-looking than they are, and possesses the genes of a truly great artist; that watching him suffer to any degree is a consolation for their stupidity, their moral and aesthetic poverty, the interstellar void they might just as well be living in. But no; it's "The Right Stuff." Nothing to do with the story, nothing clever - probably the only Roxy Music song the reporter knows, and not even a good one.