Wurzel’s trail included no surprises – we have all hashed this area too often for that – but it succeeded remarkably well in keeping back markers in touch with front runners, with a judicious use of short cuts and the hare’s own interventions; we ended more or less together, highly unusual nowadays, in some 70 minutes for 4 miles.  Last week’s report triggered an exchange of e-mails from which it emerged that “pace” is no longer a synonym for speed.  Pace is expressed in minutes per kilometre, at least among serious runners, the inverse of distance over time.  Oddly, the two values are identical at 6.1 mph or min/km, roughly the speed of the youngsters last week, which must set us oldsters reminiscing about our younger days.  Si jeunesse savait; si vieillesse pouvait…

  We were for much of the time in territory beloved of Captain Webb, who was indeed with us today, though I suppose most hares have set trails in this area.  More front runnrs than pack today: Atalanta, Bigfoot, Miss Bean, Stevie Blunder….. the usual suspects.  (Do you remember which film that phrase comes from?  Very famous!)  I was usually with Dormouse, Petal, RHUM, J. Arthur.  Master Bates kept up by taking all the short cuts, Tiller was still with us at the end, Tosser, as inventive as ever, and a virgin hasher whose name escapes me (I lost my hearing aid on the run!) [Ed: Our returning Ukraininan friend, potentially to be named “Where Is She?” – something more appropriate for Bodyshop these days!]

  Really there were very few others.  Tequil’Over was administering alcohol, with Lord Raleigh and ‘Ardon P in tow.  SBJ and Blue Suit did their own thing, which included coming across (briefly) the errant Body Shop, not back as the Circle ended despite a lengthy delay while our RA completed changing his apparel.  He then managed to call almost everyone present in as a sinner; but the share of beer awarded to sinners these days is so minimal that our stocks were barely affected.

  It appears that Body Shop has rejected the tracking device which would allow us to monitor his progress; and I do not see how to prevent his appearing and doing some version of the trail.  Though this creates problems for everyone else; and the man who asked “Am I my brother’s; keeper?” came to a bad end.

  Rain was promised, for this one mild day during the cold spell, but when did it last really rain on SH3? Drizzle occasionally, but little more.  We lead a charmed life.

  The French seem to have fewer nursery rhymes than we, but more songs for children. One of these draws on real historical figures from the distant past, King Dagobert and Saint Eloi; in the song the king’s ineptitude is redeemed by the saint, though in reality the king rescued Eloi from his enemies.  Attempts to find historical origins for our own rhymes (Ring-a Roses as the plague, Georgie Porgie as the Prince Regent) are generally dismissed by experts such as the Opies, who can trace the origins of such rhymes far into the past.  Folk songs were recovered from oblivion over a century ago, by Percy Grainger, though the expression now is generally used of melancholy American ditties, and not from long ago here in England.  Popular culture has little interest in the past; when Tin Pan Alley commissioned research into the 50 Best Songs of All Time they were completely baffled when the list went right back to the Lieder of Mendelssohn. In their minds the brief meant recent years, in America.  The current listed titles (“50 most iconic” – that word again!) are all in English and the oldest dates to 1955; tastes are blinkered.

  On On, FRB