Missing in Action assumed control of our pack for the pre-run spiel (do you remember the now distant days when we just ran out of the car park at 11 am with no allocution from anyone?) and appealed for a scribe.  No one offered.  So you get an ex-scribe this week.  I have been enjoying that “ex” bit.  Oh well.

The trail began exactly as most of J. Arthur’s trails from Albury, and I assumed I would be writing along the lines of “Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt”; but the last part of the trail, after the usual visit to Farley Green village and the usual exit from that village, was original and interesting.  Atalanta arrived in time to rival Bigfoot in the checking (and at one late check Bigfoot failed to find flour, blaming riders and their horses, an excuse whose validity escapes me)!  We were told the trail was 5 miles long, but it took 100 minutes, which suggests to me, knowing the speed of our front runners, that it was at least 5.5.  [Ed: I did 6 miles but my checking was poor!]  And the gratifying part of the morning was observing two young women from various parts of Asia – I really must be more inquisitive – joining the checks and running vigorously, just what the Surrey hash needs most.  To be fair, First On the Pig still runs well, from a rather different age group.  But our future requires plenty of members in their 20s and 30s, which is how SH3 was when I joined in 1986; perhaps we were unusual then in having couples, and single people, with few or no children.  The few sprats around ran with us.

  Let us consider stiles.  The hare did mention them; one hasher said hopefully “Is anyone counting them?” I recall Speedy Humper saying her legs were less than ideal for stiles; she would have been vocal today.  Often three in quick succession, a problem for ‘IsKnees, and for your geriatric scribe. The French have none; I once looked up “stile” in a dictionary, and found “Un escabeau pour traverser une clôture”. There are indeed rights of way in France, but they work quite differently, and are affected by the hunting season. In this country guns are for the gentry and their visitors on grouse moors; in France la chasse is much more plebeian.

  It was good to find Tequil’Over with us on trail in the closing stages of this hash: quite like old times.  As usual the threatened rain did little to dampen our spirits; we lead a charmed life on the Surrey hash.  It is many years since we got seriously wet.  The car parking today was strange; £10 threatened to use a car park labelled “Free”, but was anyone collecting the spondulicks?  I chickened out and used the adjacent car park, but most of our runners were in the usual area.  [The £10 was for those who ventured on to the “premium area”.]

 The word “and” has much to answer for. Nobody would say “Me started this”, but “Me and him started this” is often to be heard. (Oh, going back centuries: As me and my companions were setting of a snare, Me and my true love will never meet again) Conversely, “Between you and I” is now almost regarded as correct usage, though nobody would say “With I” or “By I”. It is as if adding and “and” alters the rules of grammar. Even real grammarians now admit “than”, a conjunction when I was a boy, has become a preposition: “Rather you than me”. Yet “He likes you more than I” – meaning more than I do – is different from “He likes you more than (he likes) me”.

  On On,
  FRB

The hare: All Round Good Egg, Checkin Chicken, Beer Meister, Hash Cash, etc. looks forward to a well deserved beer, if he can stay awake.