TNT Hash

Edinburgh's other major hash is the TNT, or The New Town Hash House Harriers.
A more rambunctious group, we met at the Speigel tent just outside of the main festival area. As we started to mass up (we were close to 40 I think), people started taking pictures of us, probably thinking we were one of The Fringe acts that have been performing around the Festival.
I should note that this is the back end of Festival time in Edinburgh, which is basically a massive performance affair. Street performers of all ilk, plays, magic, comedy, films, etc. etc. you get the idea. It's an amazing centerpiece for culture and entertainment around the world and definitely worth shelling out a few pound for in order to experience!
On Monday night, I joined several hashers at C Venue 34 to watch The Forbidden Planet, which was a kind of Tempest meets satiric sci-fi. It was entertaining, but wasn't a mind blowing experience by any means. The cast was young, enthusiastic and couldn't quite fill the room with their voices. Fun though and the inclusion of many 60's era rock and roll songs kept the audience entertained.
Yesterday (Wednesday), before the hash I took a whim and walked up to Bedlam Theatre to see what was playing. A play called Before We Remember had started 5 minutes prior and they allowed me late entrance to watch it.
Now, this was spectacular. A cast of 6 used string, black garbage bags, bits of paper and cardboard to tell the story of a woman who, in the final moments of death, remembers flashes from her life. Between the flavorful music, inventive and bright actors and a story that I can only call haunting, It may have been my highlight of the Festival. Especially to have simply stumbled across it so randomly.
After the play I got a quick bite to eat, grabbed a cider and waited for the hash at the Speigel tent. We finally amassed and moved to the street where the hares pointed the way.
It seems to be UK thing so far, but a brilliant trail that took us around the fringes of the city and deep into the heart of the festival was marred by hares that seemed to remark trail behind the FRB's. Several times I would check down a direction, then finding nothing for over 100 yards, turn back to find others coming back from Falses. The hares would then arrive with the walkers and point an arrow down the direction I just came from, and start marking trail!?!? Only beyond the 200 yard point did previously marked flour start to appear. I'm all for keeping the pack together, but this is silly!
Combined with one hare who was marking falses with a T instead of the standard F, it was all a tad confusing. Nevertheless, I did get a great run in, winding up and down the hilly streets of Edinburgh, jiving down narrow staircase causeways, and squeezing through masses of people in the heart of the festival who were boggled by us (now spread 3 thin in most places except for the DFL walkers) shouting, "On-On!" "Check!" and "Where in the hare does this trail go!??!"
The post-marking did get the better of one hare however as he started to draw a flour arrow on the cobblestones right in front of a policeman who grabbed him, and took down his details (one can only hope he 'tweaked' those!).
At the On-In we gathered in our section of the tent, enjoyed our discounted brew and noshed on burgers and sausages while RA Emu did his best to get things under control for circle.
I joined Croatian hasher Aer Linguist as a visitor in the center (we had 2 others, but they skipped off before circle began, along with one virgin.), and down-downs were thrown out to the usual suspects.
Afterwards (with no swing low), we boozed and mingled for a while until the crowd pared down and a few of us went on-on to another pub for more drink.
Crashed at Emu's last night, he's a great guy who I expect to run across more times as I travel. He's actually due in the US (East Coast) fairly shortly, so keep an eye out for him. Loads of fun.
Today I went to the "Dead Man's shop" (thrift store) and picked up a red dress for Prague's Red Dress Run. At under £8, it was cheap enough for the one wear I'll give it at their event weekend.

Outside of the hash, a couple or three days ago I took a train up to Stirling to check out the William Wallace Monument, a huge tower (264 steps) with rooms that detailed Mr. Braveheart's struggle to free Scotland from King Edward I's oppressive rule. The view from the top was spectacular and unhinged from the usual anti-suicide bars that do just as good a job mucking up photos.
I decided to walk to the monument from the train station, a good 3 miles roughly one-way. It was enjoyable though, I took in a lot of amazing Scottish farmland scenery, a massive ox bow river, got lost, was found again, and found wild blackberry bushes along the roadside that I could pick handfuls of blackberries from, bursting with ripeness and munch on.
Sunday I fly to Frankfurt for about 3 days before moving on to Prague.