People Who really Didn’t See Very Much Of Each Other

Motormouth Jamie Hashgate Honeymonster Iceman Spot Vlad Drac Diver NappyRash BlowJob Roy Twanky FannyBag Bogbrush and dog Pebbles Jean Chris Paul Slippery Matt Donut Dutch Hilary C5 Tapeworm and Stripper (from Venezuela!) Quack Aqua Lonely BillyBullshit Cerberus Nutcracker Potty ShutupWally SlackBladder Little Stiffy Motox Simple Baldrick Florence Doghair Chow MadDog Posh AintGotOne TC Whinge Mark (from Afghanistan!) JustMoist Hitchiker Utopia Itsyor DunnyStumbler Canoeist Chopstix Shandyman Grommet StinkingBishop Nigel Sam Bomber CabinBuoy HeadBoy

This Won’t Take A Minute

“You won’t be able to keep up with me, dude.” “Yeah right. Eat my dust, sucker.” So went the highbrow conversation between Motormouth and Virgin friend Jamie as I drove to the pub. “It’s a Hash, blokes.” I interjected sagely, giving the young feller-me-lads the benefit of my years of experience. Carrying on smoothly, “The idea is to keep the Pack together. It’s not a race.” Just goes to show you how wrong you can be doesn’t it? This was a a whirlwind round the water, a tornado down the tracks, a hurricane of a Hash. I’m surprised it wasn’t given a girl’s name and classed as a category 5. The Hares obviously wanted to get the damn thing over and done with as fast as possible, get in the pub and down as many bevvies as possible before closing time. The last two objectives were, of course, highly laudable; the first, a tad questionable – though this was the first of the 7:30 starts and we needed to return before nightfall.

We had quite a number of virgins and visitors tonight – which was very nice. Mind you, whether we ever see them again is up for speculation. After the first twenty minutes the Pack spread far and wide. So far and wide that some people missed out an entire lake circuit, others disappeared across the golf course and Spot came loping in at the end from an entirely different direction to anyone else. All in all, you have to say that the whole thing was (aptly) a runaway success. Particularly when we strolled in the pub later to find that “Tonight is Quiz Night” as the rotund custodian of the bar chuffed into his microphone, occasionally drowning our attempts at intelligent intercourse with badly enunciated queries like, “What was the name of the Queen Mother’s winning ‘orse at the 1961 Derby?” And, “What is the name of the third penguin on the left behind David Attenborough in the last program of the award-winning ‘Life on Earth’ series?” Trick question of course. It was actually an arctic hare.

Nigel came up with the best way of FRBing this Hash. “I’m following my instinct.” He told me. Curious. NappyRash’s and my instinct had been to stay in the pub. After a few early Checks we began to get the idea. On finding a Check just keep going straight on, especially on the tarmac bit by and past the cinema where they should have been showing ‘Chariots of Fire’, ‘the Fast and Furious’ and ‘Marathon Man’. Mind you, there are some excellent tunnels and the underpass there. You can practise your ‘On Ons’ and get some very enjoyable reverberations. FannyBag may not quite have matched Iceman’s Gaelic bellow (lowing of the unseen Highland stag in the braw morning mist) but managed a quite competent contralto, rising with a resonating crescendo to a satisfying climax (aforementioned stag accidentally stepping on the tail of sleeping stoat). And it’s always worth reaching a satisfying climax.

Bogbrush, meanwhile, was having problems seeing the flour blobs. So were we but at least he had the excuse that he had so many spots before his eyes (Pebbles the over-eager dalmation) that he couldn’t see to even run straight. Having run right round that long, finger-shaped loop back to the footbridge where it began we actually saw Hares PQ and Uplift. “Check it out that way!” They exhorted, pointing along the towpath. Crikey, give us a break girlies. We’re plumb tuckered out. But there was no respite. Except when we ran into a field to check the trail and spied Itsyor on the other side of a barbed wire fence, in dense undergrowth, looking confused. He grinned vacantly at us. We grinned vacantly back. This is the sort of magic moment that makes Hashing all worth while.

Iceman, meanwhile, with prior knowledge learned while leading his kids round the area a couple of days ago confidently tapped the side of his nose, arched a knowing eyebrow and intoned smugly, “It should be all right”. Pointing along a trail. Quite amazingly, it was though I then stupidly back-tracked from a Check (should have gone straight on you see) down a False with no ‘F’ and had to run like an absolute lunatic to catch up with tail-enders Twanky and (probably) Drac (or Vlad). We trotted breathlessly past the aviation museum where two circles of air cadets, some in blindfolds, were holding on to two separate ropes. My initial thought was, “What the …?” But then realised that whatever they were doing was obviously just as enjoyable as, and marginally less pointless than, our Hash. Fair enough, boys and girls. Carry on.

And so did we. Desperately overtaking CabinBuoy (crocked knee) and AintGotOne (couldn’t be arsed to run) before finally catching up with Bomber who was struggling to remove an insect swimming about in his eye. This was not only a chance to take a breather but was reasonably amusing to watch – a moment of aqueous humour. Har. Har…Oh, all right, it wasn’t that funny but I wanted to get that joke in didn’t I?

I

Scurrilous Scandals

Quote of the night came from Posh who articulated to us that, “The less I wear. The faster I run.” I can only say that I am looking forward very much to the day she decides to go all out and win the Hash.

Many thanks to GT, PQ and Uplift without whom our calves would be a lot less sore…

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Simple presented the following (you know, he’s getting rather good at this) :-

Drank from the end instead of the side. Rather a lot of spillage.

Up and Coming