Last CALL: Annie, Get Your Gun
Taki
o Annie Get Your Gun BY TAKI C~ ne of the first things Christopher Buckley did when hired by Esquire 25 years ago was commission an article on the etiquette of pheasant shooting. I had a desk...
...The magistrate let him offwith a stern warning amid great laughter in court...
...Ironically, it was St...
...I had a desk next to his, and as soon as the piece arrived, I sent a copy AST CAL to my older brother--who never spoke to me again...
...new tweeds and cursing the "dirty dago" the predictable happened...
...The proper form after an accidental shooting is to lay down the gun immediately and leave the field...
...Some people have been known to abuse the ritual...
...Ditto about a "running cock"~not a dripping phallus, but a male pheasant scurrying along the ground...
...He shot at it repeatedly, and when the dirigible landed five hysterical American ladies emerged threatening to bring frontier justice to Yorkshire...
...Although hitting humans rather than birds is generally frowned upon by the shooting fraternity, it is a rare shoot that can brag that no human blood was spilled during a season...
...For example: When I told a Californian lady that my brother had just pricked Lord Hambro, she almost slapped me...
...Range Rovers and second sons of English aristocrats do just fine...
...Lord Mountgarret was not at all a good sport when he spotted a hot-air balloon overflying his moor in Yorkshire...
...Only last winter an American friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, shot low and hit no less than five joggers...
...The police were summoned by one of the hysterical girlfriends...
...When the host explained to the police that the offender was not only a gentleman but also the finest shot in Italy, they were not impressed...
...The gun...
...Lord Carnavron, now shooting in that great moor up above, once had a horse running in the fourth race at Epsom but was stuck as host in his own shoot...
...Little did he know...
...I sent him the damn thing because he'd just been shooting on some English moor and had peppered another hunter right in the you-know-where...
...Suddenly there are no more embarrassingly new shiny ones around...
...Needless to say, there are still many things the new-English do wrong to give themselves away...
...At another shoot, again in the Hamptons, an Italian-American socialite shot across the line of guns, decimating a group of newly rich dot-corn executives out trying to impress their girlfriends...
...The way he shoots," said one officer, "he must be the only one left...
...I also seem to get into trouble with American folk that shoot living things...
...His defense was that he suffered from bad eyesight and he had mistaken the balloon for a very fat pheasant...
...Such as asking visitors to admire their dogs, or putting ice in their drinks, or having large, clean bathrooms with showers in them...
...It was a very superficial wound...
...Even a novice--like the rock star who held his gun like a guitar~owns a pair of old Purdeys...
...Local gossip had it that he was dead drunk when he shot at them...
...Despite the numerous gaffes and accidents, Americans must be given Although hitting humans is generally frowned upon by the shooting fraternity, it is a rare shoot that can brag that no human blood was spilled during a season...
...The cops did not disappoint...
...Mountgarret had to appear in front of a magistrate and the irate American ladies...
...He grazed a beater's jacket, put his gun down, and left the field before anyone had a chance to tell him there was no harm done...
...Armed with heavy artillery they charged to the scene behind a couple of armored personnel carriers...
...I guess nobody is perfect...
...Valentine's Day...
...While they lay writhing in their brand "Mighty sporting of Porchie," said a fellow gun...
...Ever since Chris Buckley's commission of the do's and don'ts of shooting, there are no more 30-foot-long Cadillac limousines or Filipino houseboys doubling as beaters or pickers-up...
...The greatest accomplishment of this new-English manner school is the acquisition of the accoutrement that always gave one away in the past...
...The crafty Carnavron, a great shot, did not hesitate...
...credit for trying...
...But pricking someone only means a close miss...
...No sooner had the joggers been hit, then they they called the fuzz on their mobile and reported they were under fire...
...This happened somewhere in the Hamptons, where the police are mostly of Polish extraction and hate crime and criminals...
...I never understood my brother's oversensitivity, but then perhaps he never understood why I wrote up the accident in an English newspaper...
...Asking someone whether he has a "good bag" does not warrant a punch in the nose...
...Mind you,Americans are improving with the language of the moor, but nevertheless shooting in America is still a far cry from England...
...K 102 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 9 June 2001...
Vol. 34 • June 2001 • No. 5
