Flour road markings for Glasgow runners spark emergency alert

Emergency alert was necessary due to risk of half the city's population turning up for a quick snort.

https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/hash-house-harriers/

@scotroutes, do you have anything you'd like to share with the class?

Is this kind of overreaction new or have people always been this daft?

Usually blamed on dognappers or burglars, but this sort of lunacy has gone on for years.

Has escalated to schools closing rather than merely giving middle aged ladies on local facebook groups aneurisms though.

Bwahahaha! This happened in our sleepy Midlands village 😀 bit without the emergency alert
The local Facebook groups went bonkers. Not since someone lost their hat and then someone else found it had there been so much chatter

A couple of years ago, there was a Facebook post on a local walking group, who tend to be fairly mental normally, warning people about the white powder being spread through the woods to poison dogs. A pretty quick reply told her that it was runners, just like this thread, but she replied that police needed to be told anyway.

Indeed. Mrs Lawman and one or two of her dog-walking buddies got themselves in a bit of a tizz about small piles of poison (only flour, obviously) around our local dogwalk a couple of years ago, until I pointed out Hash House Harrier behaviour. It all calmed down quite quickly.

Yes this comes up a lot on the local area glasgow Facebook groups.

Along with someone posting about a strange mark outside their house in chalk and someone telling everyone that a clandestine network of vagrants use these chalk marks to identify houses to rob and pillage.

because of course, in the wettest country in the world, chalk marks on pavements and walls would be a completely reliable way to identify easy targets

To be fair, Glasgow's probably the last place terrorists are going to hit after the last time 🤣

Along with someone posting about a strange mark outside their house in chalk and someone telling everyone that a clandestine network of vagrants use these chalk marks to identify houses to rob and pillage.

bob, in your current neck of the woods here in EK, the chalk marks have been found to be associated with marking houses for subsequent dog thefts unfortunately.  At least a dozen of them in the Hairmyres area in the past 3 years 🙁

chalk marks have been found to be associated with marking houses for subsequent dog thefts unfortunately. 

Found to be by who? I'd be interested to see the source for that.

bob, in your current neck of the woods here in EK, the chalk marks have been found to be associated with marking houses for subsequent dog thefts unfortunately. At least a dozen of them in the Hairmyres area in the past 3 years

It's the same argument used against violent video games.

99.9% of violent criminals have played GTA, because 99.9% of the population under 50 have probably played GTA.

99.9% of dog napping victims have strange marks outside their house, because 99.9% of houses have probably had some sort of roadworks on their street in the last few years.

Why on earth would you mark your target like that? Just ping the location to the local dog nappers watsapp group and avoid the curtain twitching. Are dog nappers really kind hearted people looking out for each other, marking easy targets for their mates that have fallen on hard times since microchipping came in? Most dog napping's are just the product of dogs having poor recall and going home with anyone who calls them/offers treats.

We've had both the water company installing meters and gigaclear installing fiber this month, the road looks like an angry facebook rant accidentally typed in wingdings.

@BruceWee - we're actually thinking of doing a couple of these in our club 😂

Found to be by who?

That would be the local sleuths on Nextdoor. They're really good at detecting that sort of thing.

On on!

Highlight from my town last summer was someone who discovered a *single ziptie* on a fencepost/gatepost that she passed on her regular dogwalk through the park. The tail of the ziptie coincidentally pointing in roughly the direction she walked in.

This was clearly an organised and well resourced gang of professional dognappers indicating her route (and nobody else, as a park in a busy home counties town wwill have no other foot traffic).

My favourite are those that share on local Facebook pages, "this dog is missing in Exeter", thats great and i feel sorry for the owners, but we live in frickin Norfolk, its not exactly local!

That’s hilarious. I’ve just contacted friend who run with this group to see what trouble they have caused

That reminds me of a funny...

Friend of mine texted saying his girlfriend was in a panic as they found what they think is a hyperdermic needle full of I dunno, heroin or something, in her work place.

Her colleague said it might be something to do with computers, and knowing I work in IT, I got asked 'before they spoke to HR and called the police'.

Turns out it was a syringe of thermal paste... the kicker is, they are office bods for a plastic surgery practice who's bread and butter is botox and lip-fillers, etc... so you'd think they would be able to tell the difference, oh how I laughed!

Had the police called out to our group before now but that didn't get escalated to full hazard response 🤣

bob, in your current neck of the woods here in EK, the chalk marks have been found to be associated with marking houses for subsequent dog thefts unfortunately. At least a dozen of them in the Hairmyres area in the past 3 years

Could never figure out, particularly with the amount of domestic CCTV out there, why someone would risk getting caught marking houses when generally every house has a number, or name stuck to it.

Could never figure out, particularly with the amount of domestic CCTV out there, why someone would risk getting caught marking houses when generally every house has a number, or name stuck to it.

You don't need to figure it out.

IT
DIDN'T
HAPPEN

I

KNOW

Is it the equivalent of the Single speed world championship but in running?

They make you run around Glasgow (shudder), snort a line every so often, then hand you a tattoo at the finish line?

😀

Yeah our local curtain twitchers facebook community forum invented a conspiracy involving dog-nappers

Even after I posted the explanation that I had spoken to the guy marking the route and found their website that said they were all meeting up at a local pub, people still preferred the explanation that it was a criminal conspiracy involving arcane markings using a soluble substance in the wettest city in the UK.

I personally though it was a brilliant example of how daft conspiracy theories propagate in the social media age.

I
KNOW

You know,I know you know.