Bomber Ladybird Hashgate Danish Natasha Kristian NipponTuck Foghorn The Tremblers Artifuct Handful Greenfly Ms. Whiplash Eth Baldrick Motox GBH Urine Iceman Cheating BGB Alice Incider Brian and Kundun the dog Zebedee Florence Kim Flash Dribbler and Paddy the dog Whinge T.C. Drexel and Maggie the dog

"Frightening", "Appalling", "Toe-curling", "Obscene", "Yeeugh!", "Hmm, nice". These are just some of the captions that could accompany this truly gut-wrenching photo. This limp-wristed, trannie is our very own C5 caught strutting his stuff on the recent Cornish trip. Not for nothing are Fulham supporters (for he is one) known as ‘cottagers’. This picture was handed to me in a plain wrapper in The Fox by a certain attractive blonde lady who whispered that said C5 had also stolen her jeans off the washing line. I can only assume that his eyesight is going and he mistook the jeans for a particularly stout pair of serge bloomers. Still, the boundah is now well and truly ‘outed’ and a good horsewhipping followed up with a course of cold baths should sort the feller out. Looks like a square meal or two wouldn’t go amiss either.

But on to more uplifting things (er, as it were). On Sunday there was a choice of the Windsor Half Marathon, the Mortimer 10k, or Bomber and Ladybird’s Hash. No contest really as the fulsome list above implies. Several newcomers and the odd virgin (Kristian) appeared, he being dragged along by Danish and Natasha whether he wanted to or not. Nice enough chap our Kristian but rather too prone to warming up before the Hash – despite being warned! Ms. Whiplash cordially welcomed everyone and handed over to a rather hungover Bomber. Saturday night’s party in Ealing had left the lad rather up to the eyeballs in drugs, drink and general debilitation. He staggered a little, slurring slightly and only ralphed twice while telling us that Ladybird was still laying the trail. Yes, it was that well organised. Bomber pointed a trembling finger at the On Out, stomach heaving and eyes bulging. We didn’t wait for the inevitable but skipped off smartish, most people opting for the recognised route while I went in the opposite direction. Don’t ask me why. There’s a streak of perversity (not perversion. See above.) that directs me away from the (begging your pardon) common rabble. It certainly provided a useful warm-up as I raced after the too-smart Incider and Kundun, the walking Whinge and TC and various other wanderers and chatterers, including the athletically attired Greenfly, speeding down the road barely hampered by the wonky wheel on his zimmer frame.

Of course, we soon entered the damp environs of the well-shiggied forest and Alice, Trembler, Baldrick, Kristian, Artifuct and I swapped leading roles in a tightly-knit group as one or the other of us went down a false. An interesting smell assailed our collective nostrils which I put down to a fire and Artifuct (with an expert’s nasal ability) put down to ‘wee’. It could have been GBH’s friend Urine I suppose but he didn’t smell like that after the Hash. I guess we’ll never know.

Cheating, surprisingly enough was heard plaintively bleating about being lost from the middle of a shrub so Zebedee and I put a bit of a spurt on to leave him behind and to catch up with Iceman. Sadly, Iceman called ‘lost trail’ almost as we reached him, despite standing next to a bloody great check. I expect all that Web surfing is finally getting to his eyesight.

There were quite a lot of well-laid checks that had us running about like woolly-minded sheep along with the odd baa check, one of which (a baa-2) caught me out rather nicely and sent me scurrying back towards Motox and Drexel. I might point out here that Drexel’s dog, Maggie, was doing a very fair impression of Beaver by jumping in every muddy puddle available and trying to catch water drops splashed up by Foghorn at the regroup. Ah yes, the regroup. Pounding up a fairly steep, well-tussocked and cow-poop strewn hill obviously affected Zebedee and Foghorn deeply since they were seen stretching against a fence! Artifuct and I contented ourselves with chatting to a friendly horse looking over the gate and Cloggs in a display of generosity rarely witnessed on the Hash offered the magnificent steed the three limp strands of wet grass she had plucked from the roadside. It chewed them thoughtfully, arching a sardonic eyebrow at this display of largesse and ruminating on the human condition. At this point Foghorn very kindly soaked us all from the back with a massive puddle stamp, then repeated the procedure over Handful who then appeared from behind as though recently plucked from a silage pit. I was just about to offer to get her out of those nasty, wet clothes when Bomber called us to check it out so Zebedee, Foghorn and I duly trotted off down the false trail that was bounded closely by particularly virulent stinging nettles. Bad mistake – but such is life.

Somehow we found ourselves hurtling past Shep’s old mansion in Wyfold Lane to end up at a double check (curious!) where we once again crashed off into the woods, passing an abandoned baby bath on the way! We hit the Long/Short trail bifurcation despite most of us believing we had already been on the Long. I set off behind Whinge and TC (who were actually running at this time), closely followed by Cloggs who informed me she needed a pacemaker. I enquired sympathetically after her health to be given the old fish-eye and ‘Not that sort of pacemaker you plonker’ in reply. Chatting with Cloggs was a mistake as we completely missed a sharp left and headed for unknown woodland. No thanks to Whinge and TC who very unsportingly did not call us back but chugged onward, cackling with glee. But it was no matter. We soon caught them up and accidentally took a small short cut back to the pub. Cloggs and I (breathing heartily) fetched up next to Incider’s Brian, who’s pathetic excuse for not joining us was that his old dog hadn’t fancied a walk (now, now gentle reader; be kind). Since he is a sports tharapist he took one look at our heaving carcasses and opined "You ought to do some o’ that there stretchin’", with his hands stuffed into his pockets and leaning so far back I thought he’d fall on his a**e. Still, the stretching gave us something to do until Zebedee and Florence staggered, bloodied but unbowed, into the car park. Obviously, the mother of all rows had erupted en Hash over who should be first to use the new Goblin vacuum cleaner. I never did find out who won.

RA Motox presented the following :-