The Runday Shag

Issue 2540

Date:        22 September 2024

Hare:        Arfur Pint & First On

Venue:     Ockley

On On:     Inn on the Green

WE SLIP AND SLIDE: DANCING SWAN LAKE AROUND VANN LAKE

  It was excellent to celebrate the equinox by welcoming once more the families who have found our Sunday excursions congenial. We should elect one of the parents as a JM next spring. “Youth at the helm” as the man said. And if one of the mothers, then “beauty at the prow”.

  Well, today’s hares were both of the fair sex, but this is no excuse for not going round again. Some of the checks were so strange we spent ages stumbling upon the solutions; apart from the families and (of course) Atalanta, few were back before I was, in 100 minutes, where normally that distance would have taken less than 85, time lost at enigmatic checks. This said, it was a perfectly good trail, largely in woodland, familiar enough of course, SH3 have been here often, but still interesting and attractive, with plenty of shiggy to remind our runners of hashing traditions.

  We stayed east of the A29; though the second check threatened to take us back across it. Atalanta, who was only one minute late, soon solved it as a back check; Veggie Queen came upon more flour and attracted us into following it, but this petered out oddly, and once again Atalanta found where we should go next. Then came the longest of our baffled pauses, scratching around and searching for flour; I think this time it was Stevie Blunder who set us right. [Ed: See trail map below]. All credit to Hans der Schwanz, gamely making good progress on these slippery paths; at this stage even Teddy Bear was still with us.

  When we had got past the lake we found flour in two directions at a junction; it took us a while to work out that the counter-intuitive direction was the one to follow. From there the trail went south, and appeared to stop once more; some expressed disappointment that we appeared to give up and head for home, but were relieved to learn that we were again back on flour. It must be said that many of the checks had not been marked through, though some were, certainly the last one, sending us back for what must have been almost a mile on tarmac to return us to our car park. All credit to the youngest with us today (four years old perhaps), carried by Daddy in the worst of the mud, but otherwise gamely hashing with the best.

  When David Mamet’s play American Buffalo came out 50 years ago there was considerable comment on the obscenities, with an explanation that poor, less-educated people spoke like that to express emotion and emphasis. Nowadays much of what was once known as polite society is equally ready to use what TV calls strong language; the words generally avoided now, except by right-wing thugs, are racist instead. I have not adopted obscenities, though when during a trail Too Posh sent me to ask the hare (Captain Webb) for instructions I did report “He told us to fuck in the general direction of off”. Naturally many people adopt the speech they hear round them, including vogue words, buzz words, words and phrases currently “in”; if these include obscenities, so be it, though the traditional swearers and cursers – such as soldiers – must resent this. It is held to be a quality to “write as you speak”, though probably most people omit foul language when they write, however much their speech is interlarded with obscenities. (I tend on the contrary to speak as other men wrote, centuries ago; Villon or Marvell, and ignore modernisms entirely).

  On On, FRB

Editorial

Letter to the editor (an alternative account of the trail)

Dear Sir,
  Once again I find it necessary to fulminate. It concerns the behaviour of certain members of the SH3 during the excellent Run 2540. Just over a kilometre from the start, I was following the pack who were calling quite vociferously, when I realised that I had seen no flour for some time and noticed Lord Tosser of Weybridge (he doesn’t use this title on the Surrey Hash), calling from a path to the right which was ascending. I have long since known that Tosser is very good at 2nd guessing the trail, so I went back to the fork and followed him. I then realised that he was on flour and the pack weren’t! The trail forked right and I met Tosser coming back. “It’s a check” he said “I think it goes straight on” and it did. We were soon back on flour. The ever fading cries of “OnOn” from the pack gradually changed to “Checking” even though no one could have seen a check! I prefer the call of “Looking” in these circumstances. “They must be heading for the lake.” said Tosser. Due to our octogenarian pace we were expecting to be caught up by Front Runners. On hearing some distant and extremely shrill calling, Tosser said “Here she comes!” Eventually a Harriette, whom I shall not name, appeared. I explained that due to Tosser’s stalwart efforts, we were the only ones on-trail. Her reply was a single word which is unprintable but to give you a clue, it begins with “B” and ends in “ollocks”! I think that we have to accept that such “Ladettish” behaviour is only too common within the SH3.

Yours, most concernedly, Breast Mate

Welcome back, our GM & her consort!

She wasn’t going to be scuppered!

Haberdashery

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Note to holders of BT Internet e-mail accounts

We receive many “bounce-back/non-delivery” notific-ations for people who have BT internet accounts.  This is because BT have imposed anti-spam processes designed to stop bulk messsages and messages sent via alias accounts.  Many people use alias accounts, where they have more than one address, to simplify their administration.  The result of the strength of these so-called “spam” filters is that many legitimate messages are also blocked.  We thought you might like to know if you have one of these accounts as you may not be receiving important messages.

Pictures – Click for larger copies of these & many many more in this week’s album

Trivia

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