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I left the sub-competent Sturdy’s Castle and ran down a wooded bridleway that, while solid, has been muddy in the recent past and is now fairly uneven and difficult to negotiate…a very technical run.  At the top of a hill near an intersection with another long distance trail and the entrance to some fields I spotted hash markings which I suspect are for the Bicester HHH trail Monday.

The path from Sturdy’s Castle

A perfect spring day, I ran slow enough to take in the variety of trees and terrain as the hill peaked and then fell off toward a churning creek with a tempting creekside trail…tempting but not irresistible since I was heading to the Killingworth Castle (which was closed down the last time I ran through this village a few years ago).  Another small hill climb of about a 2/10 mile distance and 40 meters elevation change and I spotted the target from the peak:

The place was busy and yet the three fellows running the show had it under control and chatted easily in multiple conversations whilst pulling me a pint of Windrush (North Cotswold Brewery‘s award winner this year).  The colour was deep and dark like a stained oak beam inside the fortress-like pub, but it seemed weak both in a.b.v. and flavour–subtle and with floral hints but not really a beer that I would associate with soaking up some Vitamin D on a breezy day like this.

Realised upon editing…the sign has the pub on it including the sign with the pub on it including the sign with the pub on it….

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The treatise before you seeks to introduce the uninformed world to Hashlam, the faith of Hashers worldwide, and to dispel the myths and innuendo that have developed due to prejudices brought on, too often, from the practice of its rites in view of the general public, insh’Gispert (G-willing).  The religious aspects are regularly covered on individual hashing sites and on Wikipedia; this entry will try to deal with some of the societal implications.

Most of the misinformation comes from the ambiguity and subtlety between the various forms of practice of Hashlam. Many of you will have heard of the two major sects, the Shites and the Sotties, with the Shites adherents of the PreLay (paths to the True Trail that exist before the journey is taken) while the Sotties believe in Live trails (often a misnomer) that must be discerned from freshly given divine clues.  Subtleties in belief and practice all too often result in G-Had as in the one called by a hasher known as Ibn-Love FatWa of the fundamentalist Sottie group known as the Arizona Larrikins (aka, Mr Happy’s) against a less well established Sottie sect known as Bike Hashlam (whose cultish offshoot, the Cycletologists, boasts many celebrity members) culminating in the flour fueled carpet bombing of the Bike Hash’s first Red Dress Run (this rite is described on most Hashing websites and will not be explored here).

Results of the Bike Hash G-Had

It may come as a surprise to many of you that Hashlam has its antecedents in the other two great Western religions, ie, Brewdaism and Trackstianity (which itself developed from the Brewdaic tradition via a more fundamentalist form of the Beer Run). In fact, the path to Hashlam, known as the True Trail, very often involves dabbling in one or both of the older faiths with even observant members of Orthodox Brewdaism taking up running and very sober members of Trackstian sects finding solace in a Brewish Temple.

It is written and widely believed that, having taken up the Way of the True Trail, it is impossible for one to leave. Liberal adherents believe the prescribed death of an ex-Hasher is meant to be figurative, but support groups such as Apostacy Alcoholics, or AA, have taken on many a wayward Hasher and are considered heretical organisations even by the most broad-minded believers. There may even be time to explore the Seven-ish Pillars of Hashlam, most famous of which being the Interhaaj in which every hasher of nearly the financial means is expected to go make an ass of himself in a foreign land.

In future postings, we hope to shed light on how Hashlam has integrated with Eastern religions such as the Budhists (of both the Budweiser and Budvar varieties) and the exotic Tindu pantheon of tinned (and bottled!) beverages.

The Centre for Hashlamic Studies was founded in 2013 by Slowsama-bin-Riden with the mission to examine and explain Hashlam’s place in out increasingly interdependent world. Slowsama can be contacted by the faithful via Hashspace and by the rest of you infidel dogs at dr.slowride@yahoo.com .

Gispert aleichem…aleichem,on-on.

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I tried to follow the trail from the Bee’s Knees: blobs of flour and ‘checks’ (circles where decoy trails go in alternate directions to the ‘true trail’); but, alas the markings seemed incomprehensible to me — local traditions are something you just have to learn through hard graft.  But, I eventually did come across the Golden Farm, an exceptional old inn near the River Churn; more over, they had a tasty beverage with a pump clip that looks just like Fat Chix, a nefarious Tucson hasher (in keeping with the theme, this was my choice of refreshment).

 

It is a huge house and quite old but one large back room is entirely dedicated to billiards (with full size tables) and some of the drinking tables serve double duty as drafts/chess boards.  There is a huge beer garden wrapping from the front around to the south side.

Perhaps that was an old trail as I never spotted any obvious hashers at the pub (although there were a lot of likely candidates for walking trails — short trails, certainly, but the fellows around the bar looked like a hint of beer and sweaty females on offer would be all the incentive needed). I may be underestimating the effect of inertia, though.

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An early afternoon trot around Cirencester is always a welcome thing, especially when you get dropped off nearly in front of a pub as welcoming as the Bee’s Knees.  Traditional architecture and hospitality but with a healthy dose of modern “sport bar” fixtures — there was sumo wrestling on tele! — combined for a good first impression.  I got an Arkell 3B and headed out to the smoking garden (since the other few early customers were all out there hacking up lungs).

The best thing of all, as I left for the start of the run there were blobs of flour at the door from which I inferred that a Hash House Harriers trail had been laid there recently; with any luck, it would lead me to another pub…which, eventually it did.

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We named a visitor  ”Gentleman’s Relish” at Mr. Happy’s Hash in Tucson after he used the term in a fantastic story from his early days with the Royal Ulster Constabulary.  The definition I know is here, so you can imagine how surprising it was to find it tinned on the shelf at Sainsbury’s.  Yuck.

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The t-shirt retirements continue, with the race shirts joining the exodus started by the hashing shirts…the up-to-date map of the hashing shirt gravesites is here.

3 March: At first glance this might seem out of place, but two things make this particular shirt dumping hash relevant.  First, it is in the loo of the Hare and Hounds (as hashy a pub name as you could hope for). Second and more to the point, I traded a Gypsies hash sweatshirt for a Carolina Trash t-shirt that was too tight on the poor shivering owner, and they say chivalry is dead; the first month in England a barman spilt my beer on that shirt and I traded him it for the shirt we have at hand:

16 March: The Thame 10K shirt is another dual-qualifying garment as the night before the race we stayed up till the early morning drinking and listening to old records the night before so that I spent the first portion of the pre-race vomiting…good times.  This one, with the date and distance but not the race name (just the lone sponsor’s logo), was dumped in the Plume of Feathers as I changed into some dry clothing.

30 March: One of the few races I ran under my given name (or, at least, my family given name) while there, the 2006 Tucson Marathon was also my best ever performance at the distance as I steamed ahead of a half-dozen hash relay teams and snagged the first–nay, first three–beers as the jHavelina HHH beer check was still setting up.  Also, a guy I hobbled along with the last two miles collapsed in the finishing chute and died as the emergency crews tried to help.  Excellent day for me, not so much for the better athlete.

The shirt, like its caretaker these many years, is frayed, a bit too thin to be seen in public, and inappropriate in professional situations.  We both visited the Ludgershall Castle, but only one of us returned.

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The t-shirt retirements continue, with the race shirts joining the exodus started by the hashing shirts…the up-to-date map of the hashing shirt gravesites is here.

8 February: The run was Calne to Chippenham, the shirt visited 3 pubs (it should have felt comfortable with that), and got dumped ignominiously behind the loo…at least it was face-up, unlike its former wearer (well, it has happened).

13 February: Although neither a race shirt nor a hashing shirt, my Southern Arizona Road Runners shirt qualifies as both.  A large organisation, I went entirely unnoticed my first year as a member despite taking 3rd in the Grand Prix for my age group; I re-joined under my hashing name and Slow Ride (Slow being short for Winslow) took 1st in the Grand Prix.  Dry-rotting off my body, I left this one on the banks of the flooded Cherwell at the Mesopotamia Causeway in Oxford:

14 February: The Brakspear shirt is nearly new and I only wear it as an undergarment due to it being a smallish medium and fairly inelastic.  I’m counting it amongst the Racing shirts, though, because it was ‘won’ by completing the Brakspear ale trail of 10 pints in ten places on a map they provided…two days (hmmm, so it sort of qualifies as a hashing shirt, too).  On an old chair in the alleyway archipelago.

17 February: This would have to rate as another double-dipper (both a race shirt and honourary hashing shirt)–I ran the Snowdonia Marathon, hilly and shiggy rich and muddy and rainy and cold, whilst stopping at every open pub on the route for a pint (write up here includes links to pub reviews along the way).  Left on a traffic sign at a bridge on the rail trail path during part of the Every Trail in Old Town project, the elastic was completely shot in it and it hung more like a rag than a garment–just the way I like but leaving it to fend for itself in the wilds will attenuate the tutting from the woman:

19 February: As this project continues I am seeing that many of the race shirts also technically qualify as hashing shirts.  Yet another was drawn from the big drawer of tees this morning–the Swindon Half Marathon which included, for me, an extra mile as I detoured off course for one pub before hitting another on the course–and as I was running part of the Every Trail In Old Town project in the afternoon it got ‘retired’ on a Christmas tree dumped near the Devizes Road bridge on the rail trail:

Now, here’s a legitimate hashing shirt and completely personalized: the Full Moon Monsoon 69th Anal-versary Hash-A-Thong was the brainchild of Company Cock at the Huachuca HHH (Sierra Vista, AZ).  Thirteen hashes in twelve days was the ultimate goal but living 70 miles away from the sponsoring hash put me at a slight disadvantage.  For example, although I got absolutely shitfaced at the 28 July  Huachuca HHH before haring that afternoon’s jHavelina HHH in Tucson, regular readers of this blog will recognize that this is not typical of my running and drinking behaviour.  The shirt was customized to reflect my substitute trails and I was pretty happy to have hit 11 in that time.

 

 

I was in Eynsham to visit Siemens the day an Oxford HHH trail was scheduled from the White Hart, so I did a course around the perimeter of twon and found a tree to thread it onto.  Hope someone finds it:

  

 

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Chicago, my kind of town.  I spend a lot of vacation and holiday time there when I’m in the States and plan for that to be my next recreational visit to the Great Satan.

BD is for Big Dogs, and the M is Moonie (I think)–two other local hashes.  I got this shirt on my only hashing trip there, purchased from Rotten Whore for a fiver:

…and, last night I gave it one final trot, around Swindon in the snow:

This one now sits at this location:

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Front (top) and back of the late, great IH3 shirt

I ran a trail with the Indianapolis hashers during a national meeting of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (itself a booze-fest). They were a very good bunch of hashers and I still keep in touch with a few of them.

The Turf Tavern is always a good stop but I didn’t have time today so at the end of the jog just stopped off in the gents to lose the shirt. It is a comfy one, and you can pick up a pack of “hoodies” while you’re there:

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Excellent little run for a kebab, although the snow had turned into rain and it was still just above freezing.  At the A40 flyover I spotted the ideal spot for dumping the Cambridge 1600th…a crack pipe graffito that seems to be done by the ‘chicken wang’ artist:

The Cambridge shirt was never a favourite as it was a plasticized appliqué instead of a screen print, and unlike the Cantabrigensis HHH the Cambridge HHH was quite a bit up its own ass.  It is a large, if you want it is here:

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The Hashing shirt clearout is going well, and I can actually see a difference although some of the older ones got packed for the move already (I think).  I added some earlier ‘retirements’ to the map and may add some of the other [non-hashing] t-shirts to it (about a dozen have been shown in earlier blog posts and my running journals have kept up with them going back to 2001).  This time, it was the Otmoor Elite shirt (previous appearance herein linked here), which I bought off Lock Jaw just before I left the Black Bull to set my trail a couple of years back.

It was fucking cold out this morning and I didn’t want to run at all but did want to dump another tee…and, needs must.  So, I did my Saturday butcher shop (Bryan and Kay just returned from a cruise to and three-day stay in Amsterdam and said kind things about my suggestions), dumped the flesh off in the kitchen, and headed up Northern Road, looping east (into the damp, freezing wind) to the Circle then down the Pinehurst Road to take the parkway cycle route to the Southbrook Allotments; at my turn toward the allotments I spotted a relatively new exercise area and gave the equipment a go before stripping down to run hard-nippled back to my fake Kahlua and a hot shower.

If anyone wants a medium t-shirt that fits like a large (most of the ‘retirements’ are mediums that have shrunk to smalls), it rests here until some North Swindon arsonists get to the playground (which, if today is like any other, probably happened within 10 minutes of my exit):

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The clear out continues (details at the first entry).  Today, it was the jHavelina (Tucson, Arizona) HHH 1000th Trail shirt I designed along with Zamboner to incorporate a lot of prehistoric symbols (including a cool javelina) on the front and an “Ascent of Hash-Man” on the back–my original infringed copyright so the shirt printer came up with some non-IP clip art and put a red dress on one of the stages).  The “Ultra” shirt was blue for the fools that followed my 22+ mile long trail in the June heat (I went out early and every mile stashed jugs of ice frozen to cryogenic temperatures so there would be some relief beside the three beer stops (one in Crouton’s pool).

The long trail couldn’t avoid crossing old markings and even though the ones that followed the wind-worn powder from two weeks before had all been on THAT trail, as well, feh…you can never underestimate the intelligence of the pack.  The four that were most likely to catch me included my co-hare (Cavity Search, who dropped out with an injury 3 miles in), Chase, New Car Smell, and Bavarian (I think Chase and NCS stuck with it until about 18 or 20 miles, just where  the loop to ‘Beer Near’ started on the far side of the “A Mountain”).  High temperature: 104°F, 40°C and sunny.

Pick it up here (it won’t fit you, Victoria):

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The hashing shirts are still the most abundant items in my t-shirt drawer and it will be weeks before I really make a dent in correcting the situation.  Today, I cast adrift a shirt foisted on me in Jacksonville, Florida.  I had spent the previous evening drinking until sunrise with a bunch of hashers in Savannah, Georgia who, after their wee trail decided to join some South Carolina hashers the next day on the trip down to the JH3 Red Dress Run.  I was at loose ends until Monday when I had some probate business in Brunswick, Georgia, and opted to tag along.

This was an especially good event with the better part of a hundred hashers from all over the Southeastern U.S. stinking up the 6 or 7 bars we stopped in along the trail, all in crimson and taffeta and most really out of control (although, certainly not yours truly).

This one was not so much released into the wild after a final run as left on the banks of the Thames…with any luck, the waters will rise and take it via London to the sea and eventually it will drift back to Jacksonville (where coincidentally, as a result of Bloody Z’s duty station getting shifted there, wound up hosting 30 Pack Marathon #3).  Or, someone will pick it up and cast it into a bin or their own shirt collection:

 

location, for the intrepid:

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The first one wasn’t so hard, but this was a test of my commitment to the endeavour: the 30 Pack Marathon is my baby and although I only attended the first one (the Beta Test, as it were) this shirt, which followed me to England thanks to the heroic efforts of Herr Doktor Wang.  That we pulled it off without hospitalisation of any participants once, was amazing; that it has gone on to become an annual event is a sign of just how stupid hashers can be…I love my people.

 

The run took me up the Woodstock Road from Chemistry, to the Plough (funny how that happens) and onto the tow path nearby.  The bridge was picturesque and I quickly switched to a dry shirt and left my old friend hanging on the rail (off in one, like a Bandaid).

 

 

The full map of the project linked to this one:

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I hardly ever hash anymore and even toy with the idea of walking away from dr. Slow Ride and go back to virgin hashing (when possible).  I could get away with it, but first I would have to divest myself of the hashing vestments.  Looking through the dresser while packing for the house move reveals that this is a formidable task which I started today at lunch…each shirt gets one last run and then gets left somewhere I like.  (This is an old habit of mine, and some other t-shirt ‘retirements’ have been chronicled as a compilation in 2009, another Run Across Britain update had one, the Choo-Choo Hash shirt got dumped at the 2009 Snowdonia Marathon, and a shirt I used for my second haring effort in Tucson slipped this mortal coil here.)

Today’s entry was the AZ Hashing shirt showing the various kennels distributed around the State of Arizona.  It got dumped onto what I think was a column for a footbridge over a creek in the farmland a hundred yards or so away from the Oxford University Parks.  Farewell, old friend.

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So, four years now (or, rather, next week it will be…here’s the annual reports for years Three, Two, and One for historical perspective).

We just received our new visas valid until 2016 but plan to take the next step toward citizenship in a year, Indefinite Leave to Remain…sort of the British Green Card.  There is an exam, first, but in general it is all downhill from here.

The view from Western Street near the new house…also all downhill

Additionally, we are in the process of moving house (which is why I rushed the annual report a week forward) from just north of the Oasis over to Old Town to a house situated close walks to either the Beehive or the Castle or the Globe (recently reopened!)—three locals instead of one and all three of high quality—and dozens of others a short walk. The new house has three bedrooms each larger than its counterpart in the old house, the two receptions are larger and made into more of an open-plan configuration, the bath is larger and has a tub (not just a shower), and there is a finished basement; on the down side, the kitchen is a little narrower and more primitive as is the small garden but everything we do and everywhere we normally go in Swindon (save for the butcher) is so close.

The only races I did this past year were the London Marathon (5 pubs plus a can of Carling on the last mile) and the Beerathon (5 miles with a pint and a hefty food item between each) and the mileage run for the year suffered from this lack of focus—1950 give or take about 25 (most estimates pretty good using gmap-pedometer), while the last several years (except for the year of the wreck) were in the 2200-2500 range.

On the runs, I visited  255 new pubs with a stunning 67 new ones (steep part of the graph) in September when I took two weeks off work and ran at least 10 miles per day in new territory each day. The 1000th wasn’t as big a thrill as I thought it would be, but I saw some really nice places and met some really fine folk. The September holiday found me visiting Gloucester, South Wales, Slough (exotic, I know) and Exeter along with some nearer-to-Swindon trips. The 100 Yellow Beer Challenge was responsible for a lot of second visits to pubs I might not otherwise have gone to after an initial stop and many of these seemed better the second time around. Oh, and my Workingman’s Club appears to have failed or at least hasn’t been open the last several times I’ve popped by (I have a grand one scoped out for the new neighbourhood, though).

Best pubs in Year Four (reverse order by First Visit write-up):
The Southgate Inn, Devizes
Byron’s, Swindon
The Hop Inn, Swindon
Dicey Reilly’s, Teignmouth
The Brass Monkey, Teignmouth
One Eyed Jack’s, Gloucester
Ye Olde Red Lion, Tredegar
The Rose of Denmark, Woolwich
The Volunteer Rifleman’s Arms
The Green Dragon, Marlborough
The British Lion, Devizes
The Blue Boar, Alsbourne (for the Dr. Who connections)

Favourite write-ups:
Postboxes
British Citizenship Exam Prep
Risk Assessment-Bins
Oxford Tourists
Assize Court, Bristol

Cock Flavour
Paul Simon in Hyde Park
Edie’s Lawn
The hunt
The Bremen Musicians (German children’s story)
Sex Tourism in Wiltshire
Modern Algebra for Omid
Burns’ Day Lunch

There are others search for ‘made me laugh.’  The blog may or may not have made some of the over 100,000 visitors laugh, but the damn fools keep checking in (that’s you, that is).

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The previous post was better, but I wanted to showcase the screensavers pieced together by Squeezin’ (with my gratitude for these).  The pics, in order, are

Venue	Where	beer #
The Princess Hotel (done around 5 am New Year’s Day)	Swindon	1
The Bank House	Cheltenham	2
At the New Year’s Races in Cheltenham (watching my nag drag in)	Cheltenham	3
Midlands Hotel	Cheltenham	4
The Queen’s Tap	Swindon	5
The Four Candles	Oxford	6
The Turf Tavern (at the sign commemorating Clinton failing to inhale there)	Oxford	7
The White Horse	Oxford	8
O’Neill’s	Oxford	9
Ellington’s	Swindon	10
The Red Lion	Oxford	11
The Gloucester Arms	Oxford	12
Eurobar	Oxford	13
The Volunteer	Faringdon	14
The Red Lion	Faringdon	15
The Bell	Faringdon	16
The Lamb and Flag	Oxford	17
The Bird and Baby	Oxford	18
Far  The Madding Crowd	Oxford	19
Southbrook Inn	Swindon	20
The White Hart	Wolvercote, Oxfordshire	21
The Red Lion	Wolvercote, Oxfordshire	22
The Plough	Oxford	23
The Gardener’s Arms	Oxford	24
The Rose and Crown	Oxford	25
TP’s	Swindon	26
The De’s Cut	Oxford	27
The King and Queen	Longcot, Oxfordshire	28
The Woodman Inn	Fernham, Oxfordshire	29
The Eagle	Little Cocks Swell, Oxfordshire	30
The Wheatsheaf	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	31
Faringdon Folly	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	32
Salisbury Cathedral	Salisbury	33
The King’s Arms	Salisbury	34
The Old Castle Pub	Salisbury	35
The keep at Old Sarum	Salisbury	36
Wheatsheaf	Lower Woodford, Wiltshire	37
Bridge Inn	Upper Woodford, Wiltshire	38
Black Horse	Great Durnford, Wiltshire	39
Wilsford Cum Lake sign (heh, heh)	Wiltshire	40
Stonehenge (really a great disappointment)	Wiltshire	41
King’s Arms	Amesbury, Wiltshire	42
George Hotel	Amesbury, Wiltshire	43
New Inn	Amesbury, Wiltshire	44
The Greyhound	Amesbury, Wiltshire	45
Royal Oak	Oxford	46
The Red Lion	Marston, Oxfordshire	47
The Angel and Greyhound	Oxford	48
The University Club	Oxford	49
The GW Hotel	Swindon	50
Jude the Obscure	Oxford	51
The Victoria	Oxford	52
The Rickety Press	Oxford	53
Wahoo Sport Bar	Oxford	54
The Oxford Retreat	Oxford	55
The Grapes	Oxford	56
The Rolleston	Swindon	57
The Baker’s Arms	Swindon	58
The Dolphin	Swindon	59
Marsh Farm Hotel	Royal Wootton Bassett	60
The Cross Keys	Royal Wootton Bassett	61
The Old School	Oxford	62
The King’s Arms	Oxford	63
The Swan and Castle	Oxford	64
The Victoria Arms	Marston, Oxfordshire	65
The Black Swan	Abingdon, Oxfordshire	66
The Blue Boar	Abingdon, Oxfordshire	67
The Bowyer Arms	Radley, Oxfordshire	68
Zen Bar	Swindon	69
Sir Daniel Arms	Swindon	70
White Hart	Lyneham, Wiltshire	71
Sodom	Wiltshire	72
The Angel	Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire	73
Cape of Good Hope	Oxford	74
Rudi’s	Swindon	75
Burn’s Day Lunch (Haggis, Neeps, Tatties, Whisky, and 2 beers)	Oxford	76
Swindon Wildcats 3, Sheffield Steeldogs 4 (SO)	Swindon	77
The Longwall	Oxford	78
The Royal George	Purton, Wiltshire	79
Riff’s Bar	Greatfield, Wiltshire	80
Magic Roundabout	Swindon	81
The Three Tuns	Wroughton	82
The Havana	Swindon	83
The Lydiard	Swindon	84
The Savoy	Swindon	85
The Brewer’s Arms	Cirencester	86
The White Horse	Woolstone	87
The College Farm	Watchfield	88
The Horse and Jockey	Ashton Keynes, Gloucestershire	89
The Vale Hotel	Cricklade	90
Goldfinger Tavern	Highworth, Wiltshire	91
The Red Lion	Northmoor, Oxfordshire	92
The Bell Inn	Standlake, Oxfordshire	93
The Maybush	Newbridge, Oxfordshire	94
The Beehive (this is about 100 yards from the house we are moving to)	Swindon	95
Baker Street	Swindon	96
Steam Railway Company Pub	Swindon	97
The Pig on the Hill	Swindon	98
Long’s Bar	Swindon	99
near Parliament, with a Cuban cigar and a bunch of dirty looks (and after 5 pub stops)	London Marathon	100
The Bear	Oxford	101
The Old Tom	Oxford	102
The Crown	Oxford	103
The Beehive	Carterton, Oxfordshire	104
The Crown Inn	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	105
Romany Inn	Bampton, Oxfordshire	106
Talbot Hotel	Bampton, Oxfordshire	107
The George Inn	Sandy Lane, Wiltshire	108
The White Hart	Calne, Wiltshire	109
The now defunct King George	Calne, Wiltshire	110
Barrington Arms	Shrivenham, Oxfordshire	111
Groves Company Inn	Swindon	112
Revolution	Swindon	113
The Plough	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	114
The George and Dragon	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	115
The Fish	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	116
Great Western Railway Staff Association	Didcot, Oxfordshire	117
The Prince of Wales	Didcot, Oxfordshire	118
Tap and Barrel (good read goes along with this pic)	Swindon	119
Old Town Festival	Swindon Town Gardens	120
Cock Inn	Combe, Oxfordshire	121
Three Horseshoes	Long Hanborough, Oxfordshire	122
Swindon Pride 2012	Swindon (duh)	123
Wernham Hogg’s	Slough, Berkshire	124
The Myrtle Grove	Risca, Gwent, Wales	125
The Sirhowy	Blackwood, Gwent, Wales	126
Railway Tavern	Sirhowy, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	127
The Castle	Bryn Serth, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	128
The Coach and Horses	Ashvale, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	129
Ye Olde Red Lion Hotel	Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	130
The Tumble Inn	Pontypridd, Wales	131
The Maltster’s Arms	Pontypridd, Wales	132
Wyvern Theatre	Swindon	133
Byron’s Bar	Swindon	134
The Bear Hotel	Wantage, Oxfordshire	135
Source ot the River Thames	Kemble, Gloucestershire	136
Carpenter’s Arms	Lacock, Wiltshire	137
Mill House	Chippenham, Wiltshire	138
Sunny’s Pool Bar	Swindon	139
The Royal Oak	Marlborough, Wiltshire	140
The Lamb Inn	Marlborough, Wiltshire	141
The Crown	Marlborough, Wiltshire	142
IMS/TOF Mass Spectrometer	Oxford University	143
New Year’s Eve on Ferndale Road	Swindon	144

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I awoke Saturday with excitement and trepidation about the fast-track sloe gin project (most recent prior post including the label and other links here).  This was the day of filtration followed immediately by the first taste and I was prepared for the worst.  Normally, this is a long-term project and the infusion benefits from the alchemy of time and, more to the point, the slow kinetics of dissolution: the most complex and subtle flavours are leached from the pips deep in the fruit–tannins and vanillins that further react with some of the bitter fruit and skins and the added sugar.  And, so, here were the steps involved in the final preparations.

Filtration is most effective if you start with a coarse step.  With slow-sloe gin, this might include a sieve as the starter since the fruit will have softened significantly.  With this rushed, 6 week batch I went straight to wire mesh (my metal coffee filter).

 

The smells filled the kitchen even though the room was a bit cool this winter morning.  Dumping out the fruit, there was a distinct licorice and spice odour which reminded me that I used brown sugar in this batch.  I began to worry less as I moved on to fine filtration.

 

“Use cheesecloth folded into several layers,” is the advice on multiple liqueur making sites (here is my favourite); I want my creations to have a personal touch, though, so I grabbed a hashing t-shirt for the job.  The benefits are obvious: it has a fine weave, it is no stranger to being soaked in alcohol, and I have worn this on runs, quite literally, all over the world.

This photo doesn’t do justice to the quality of filtration achieved thus…it is actually pristine and not at all cloudy.  From a 1 liter jug half filled with berries and a half cup of sugar then topped with gin, I recovered 750 mL plus a shot to taste:

It is harsh and could have gone at least another month.  But, it is drinkable and sharp and has a depth of several flavours that usually disappear as the infusion progresses to full term.  The anise flavour that attacks the nose is at the forefront but there are several subtler spices–a hint of ginger and cinnamon I didn’t expect but welcome.  There is a grape-like finish but not like in a fine wine, more the grape MD 20/20 variety.

Overall, better than I hoped for.

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The run started badly from the Hanborough station, with the humidity giving way to rain and wind and then instead of warming sun it was a humidity restoring sun.  Worse, the first pub on my list and that had signage stating it was ‘Open All Day’ was closed.  I knew of another, The Swan, and turned toward it but remembered that I had been there a couple years earlier and also that it was now closed down, the gates locked, and it appeared to be a private residence.  Shit.

“Breathe,” I told myself, “and look around, the day is turning out lovely.”  Lying to oneself this way is an excellent strategy for a longer than planned trip to the pub.  A nice field and then a long residential stretch, however, deposited me in front of the Oxfordshire Yeoman, a real treat in the village of Freeland.  I really only knew about this from missing the Oxford Hash that ran from here earlier this week, though.

They were doing a lively business in food and most of the punters seemed to know one another and the bar dog.  I ordered an Oxford Yeoman which, upon questioning the landlady, I found out was whatever Greene King swill that every Greene King pub has with a label to make it sound local.  Good swill, though, and if I had been staying put I would’ve had another.  But, I now felt warmed up and ready to tackle a longer stretch (after a short jog over to Church Hanborough for the Hand and Shears, of course).

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I’ve been reading Joyce lately.  The route everyone else took, and should have taken, is at this link: http://bit.ly/MZW35I

There should be a link to the route the so-called ‘Hashers’ followed on the Oxford HHH site

Gispert’s Birthday, OH3 Trail #701, The ‘Odyssey’ Version

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It was a typical hash: Dippy and I were lost on trail within the first 200 meters out of the start.  Atypically, we had a woman with us, our ingénue Stiff Upper Clit.  Not wanting to scare off yet another one, I opted to start the Not-Trail drinking with HALF pints at the Black Swan a move that exposed us to ridicule from the regulars who, I dare say, probably have experience exposing themselves to strangers as well.  S.U.C. syphoned down her ice-cold IPA and declared, ‘You two drink like little girls,” then sped off toward the Fir Tree without us.

Some comment had just been made about Dippy’s backyard now being open

Arriving, winded, sometime after her she had already decided the beer she would demolish next.  Dippy, on the other hand, could not focus on the beer list due either to his obsession with the Lore of the Pickled Egg or to the lack of oxygen (at birth, not on the inter-pub dash).  Pints in, at last we retired to a table full of builders from Leeds; one told us of a colleague of theirs that shoved an 8 inch nail through his own foot “because we dared him,” but we were unable to recruit them to bring along this natural hash talent.  We left toward the Rusty Bicycle…

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…alas, Chester Street emerged and as it was a downhill slope to the Chester Arms we were compelled to follow Nature’s Lines of Potential.  Unfortunately, potential energy was not converted to chemical energy in the form of ale as the house was closed.  Drat.  Unable to count on the Isis or our senses of direction to get us there we plodded on to the Bicycle while still vainly seeking signs of trail.

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We found none but a helpful chap chain-smoking in front of the Glad He Ate Her Spore Anti-Social Club (that’s what my notes say, anyway) stopped us before we could enter this Members Only venue possibly to some foul end.  ”If you’re runners, you shouldn’t be drinking,” this portrait of health and well-being pointed out.

mmmmmm…beer (James Street Tavern)

Dejection lasted the time it took for us to reach the Magdalene where the tempo of service gave us time to reflect on where we might eventually find trail once more; in fact, the service was so swift that I only had time to jot down most of the notes here thus far and to recite pi to 4000 decimal places…it has improved a lot since my last visit.  And, the sausage rolls are to die for.  Watching Stiffy slide one of these past her lips is thirsty work indeed, but we still had to find trail.

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Fortunately for us, the trail we could not find (nor were even sure existed, any longer) did not deter us from finally reaching the Rusty Bicycle for some overdue refreshment.  However, we  encountered the grumpiest foreigner in the Isles at the table that we piled onto.  Unwilling to share his paper, he seemed unusually tense as Dippy leaned precariously over to read the celebrity gossip.  I made a list of probably future hash names from the headlines (the Sun is good for that) then went over to surreptitiously eavesdrop on the stories of chainsaw wielding amazons the elves at the other end of the table were giggling about.  It seemed too much for our level headed muse and upon draining our vessels (grow up, you know what that means) we loped off toward the most probable location of the On-Inn.

Who left this bag full of condoms, must belong to Pink Pussy.

The bureaucratic duties of the circle were at an end and it seemed almost as if the assembled pack had actually run a trail but, battle-scarred as we were, we heard none of the adventures one might normally expect from one of Warm and Fluffy’s endeavours; nor, indeed, did we have time to relate how much we enjoyed the trail or even to make a proper start on the On-Inn Ale we were handed before–injustice and oppression–we and a No Name (did I mention I made a list?) were hauled before the tribunal and forced to drink ceremonially for, what, I cannot be certain.

Circle is a solemn occasion