Report 1471

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Report 1471

Run	1471
Date	22-Jun 03
Hare	The Fat Controller and Thomas the Tank Engine
Venue	Witley BR Station
On On	The Bear, Esher
SSA	New:pppXn Old:137E3
OS	SU 949379

A TRAIL WHICH DID NOT GO OFF THE RAILS

Question 1: who can explain the apotropaic powers possessed by the hash?

In 900 trails I have been seriously soaked only 9 times. Today it rained heavily in the forenoon, and a dramatic electric storm threatened the Circle; but for the hash the weather was fine and dry, even sunny. Naturally the hares may claim the credit. (Part of their trail, laid early, had been obscured, but not by the Almighty; someone had set out to spoil it, the well-known Oldham effect)

Question 2: why were we so few? Scarcely more than 20 runners....So all right, GG has gone off with some SH3 stalwarts, but that hardly explains the low turn out. All celebrating England's defeat of the Wallabies? Surely not. It cannot be the reputation of the hares, since they were using a pseudonym. (An easier, though non-railway, one would have been Toc'h, for TO (Tequil'Over) and Chunderous.)

Thomas the tank engine did in fact have some shunting to do; Atalanta, almost always late, today missed the start by 15 minutes, and was ferried to an interim point on the trail by Lorraine. Naturally she went on to show her speed; a down down was given to Ard'on Provocateur for trying to touch her up, an absurd attempt: he is not in her league. (His groping is so automatic that when challenged he had no recollection of the event.)

Now, from time to time SH3 finds traces of Pistoffen; today we found the best part of an entire trail. They seem to have much more fun than we; there are multiple check circles 20m apart, false trails all of 15m long, and enough sawdust to empty an entire woodyard. TO had laid much of his early trail, and the finish, alongside theirs; this was more entertaining than confusing.

He had also gone to some trouble to give the lie to last week's hare, Glasscruncher; that worthy asserted there to be only 2 trails from the station at Witley. But he did not show up today to find what other mysteries the area offers; perhaps he had not thought of a gin-and-tonic stop at the Merry Harriers after a visit to Hydon's Ball. (And very good G&Ts they were). As a result (a) the trail was quite long - but then Piercy usually does that; (b) Hairy Buns and his bride took such pleasure in the drinks that the Circle was delayed for a good while as TO went back in search of them. (This to disprove his own rule that all solutions were back-checks; on the run-in we found that an alternative was to hash towards the sound of the horn)

It is to be hoped that those who did not hash today sent First-On their designs for the T-shirt, and that those who did handed them over. I am sure she would accept semi-late entries despatched as a result of reading this.

Almost no officials. We did have SBJ, but her GM was off with Uncle G; one half of the Onsex was the hare, so the other half did the honours; otherwise we only had the Dapperhashery mistress. So WHERE WERE ALL THE REST?!

Well, they missed a good hash. Those privileged to have been there did include some welcome faces we seldom see, such as those of Kelinchi - with a fine flair for finding flour - and Mother Brown. Tosser showed his ignorance of hash costume rules by commenting on the torn T-shirt of the stand-in RA: Greenpeace established many years ago that this is the height of hash fashion.

The hare promised me a savoury anecdote of an Amazon who took exception to his trail; but there is no longer enough space for it, so it can be held in reserve.

ON ON FRB