This week's pictures come from the recent South of England Show at Ardingly in Sussex. These country events are an enduring feature of the rural calendar and this one was pretty much exactly the same as last June. The farmers and maybe even a few of the luckier animals are all a year older. The clothing stalls are still full of shirts and trousers that look as if they're designed to last a hundred years. One thing that has changed, however, is the law on hunting and one might have expected an absence of scarlet-clad killers on horseback and their braying hounds. Not a bit of it. They paraded round the arena as if they were the Dam Busters returning from a successful sortie against the Hun (or, more likely, New Labour). They were giving each other shiny silver cups at the Hound Show. I don't know what's gone wrong with the Hunting Bill, but it doesn't seem to have had the slightest effect outside the M25.

Taking a rest in the cattle hall before the prize-giving (image 2615-134)

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