Since this was a very good trail, with encomiums well deserved, we can begin with the only adverse comments. Too much blacktop, especially at the end; and while there were indeed a fair few back checks, apart from the second check these were mostly off to the left with the obvious solution, found quickly, straight ahead. Le Pro usually sets trails unaided; it is reasonable to assume this was largely Hornblower’s, with Le Pro as a semi-visible adjunct. [Correct he was standing in for Birthing Blanket who is nursing a broken elbow] Indeed, we scarcely saw him.

  We have used this car park not so long ago, but the trail then, with the same start, soon doubled back on itself. Today we carried on to the west. There was a suspicion that the very first check had a back solution; it did not, and I claim to have called the solution; though Wally had found the flour before me nobody heard him call. Yes, just imagine that: nobody heard Wally! Then came the shiggy which Hornblower had apologised for so profusely in her introductory remarks; but no Surrey hasher will make a fuss about shiggy in March. And that was the only muddy place, or the only place without boards. Well, we came to a canal – with, on reflection, another good back check, where J. Arthur, as checking chicken, managed to mark the solution the wrong way, to Hornblower’s indignation. At this stage I seemed to be largely with SBJ; Atalanta, a mere 5 minutes late today, was with RHUM and Chastity Belt in the lead (this remained true throughout, though solving checks slowed them down enough for them to remain visible). I had to ask to be reminded of the handles of 3 other hashers just ahead of me most of the time: these were Online Services, Bolshie, and Machinist.

  Where did we go? A right-hander, which took us to Shalford village, where indeed SH3 have been before, but I don’t remember using today’s path behind a pub. The short-cutters had been offered blue flour a while before: I am not sure who followed it, apart from Captain Webb. Perhaps First On and Arfur Pint? By that time we had lost Wally, who followed flour on to a towpath which the rest of us ignored. Belcher concluded this had been a cunning plan by the hares to mislead him, though he did eventually appear at the Circle, which (when I left) Dr Death had not done, to the alarm of Master Bates, who needed his lift home. A very enjoyable morning.

  The recent bye-election result seems to have disconcerted political leaders who believe the only viable approach to Reform is to parrot similar untruths about immigrants. Oh, hostility to “incomers” seems to be an almost universal survival of the old village mentality of the Middle Ages; city dwellers see things differently, but archaic thought patterns persist. In modern Britain we would have no staff for the NHS, and there would be no workers in our care homes, were it not for these dreaded immigrants. They bring youth, enthusiasm, a commitment to long hours, which are otherwise hard to find here. It is striking how history can be forgotten; all right, in the UK our own ancestors are mostly descended from invaders (today’s Holland, Germany) who came in the centuries after the Romans left, quite a while ago, but disliking immigrants is also found in the US, from people whose forebears came much more recently. Human nature, it seems; no wonder we speak of our fallen nature.

  On On,

FRB

From our Tehran correspondent

The SH3 run writeups are getting too short, [at least they usually eshew politics!] here’s one from Tehran to pad the SH3 one out a bit.

Tehran Hash House Harriers -run report

Hi Hashers, another really fun event on Sunday, though of course we lost a few to bomb craters yet again, please do look where you are running! As visibility was a little poor and the gap between raids was all too brief, the trail was a very short indeed and we should all pay our respects to the late hare ‘Prof’ who was found after only 500 meters. A warning to anyone else with a Surrey H3 tee shirt, the oak tree symbol was seen by the USAF Artificial Intelligence targeting system as being a mushroom cloud, indicating to the Pentagon that poor old ‘Prof’ was working on our nuclear weapon program, the one we all know doesn’t exist.

As in last week’s write- up and in so many before that, we are once again looking for a replacement beer master, you’d thing the Revolutionary Guards would have other things to do just now, but it seems not. 

Next, as we announced on TV two weeks ago, we apparently have a new Grand Master, but has anyone seen him? I haven’t and nobody I have spoken to has seem him, so come on Mojtaba, let’s see you out on trail next week and officiating at the Circle. I hope he tells funnier jokes than the late GM, his dad. Well, tell any at all jokes, really.

Finally, can anyone tell me who this ‘Andrew of Norfolk’ is that keeps emailing me? He says he is looking for somewhere safer to live than Norfolk and has asked several times if there is a vacancy for a Duke of Tehran H3. As he turned down my offer to be Tehran Beermaster, I have suggested he try Kabul H3 instead.

Well, that’s it for this week and the notice for the next run will be out just as soon as the internet starts working again.

TH3 On Sec

Eveready