The Seething Throng

Shep Hashgate Iceman Spot C5 Motox Premature Cerberus and dog Molly Steve Judy JitchHiker HeyBabe Effin Foghorn Cap’n Haystax Lonely and dog Beaver TinOpener Caroline and Emma the dog Baldrick Keith Chopstix PartyAnimal Cyclogical SlowSucker Matthew Caboose Nick Cheating Centaur BGB PissQuick Glittertits Julia Dwight and son Sam Vicky Ian ShutupWally Anorak TrainSpotter Dave Tony Janice Diane Linda Jeremy Simon Liz Hamlet Shanti Sherwin Flash Cloggs Kevin Septic Dumper Utopia Mrs. Blobby Mr. Blobby 2Bob Puddleduck Itsyor Fiddler

The Grandma and GM Hash

The albatross carved a great circle in the evening sky, the feather edges of its mighty wings barely flicking in the cooling breeze. The bird had cruised a thousand miles with only one stop on a grey, rain-lashed rocky outcrop where it broke its long fast with a meal from the rotting carcass of a sand and gravel-covered puffin. The combination of materials, along with its natural juices, had churned the contents of its belly into an indigestible noxious paste which would set like concrete once exposed to the air. Ever onward it cruised. High above the grey ribbon of the M4 until little dot-like houses appeared. Then more and more of them as it sailed serenely over Reading. It turned to the North, feeling the growling and knotting in its stomach. It began the descent over Caversham, sharp eyes looking, looking. There it was! The shine of silver snagged its eye and locked its gaze as it spiralled down, belly heaving. With one huge muscular thrust it freed itself of the awful payload and raced upwards effortlessly (and a lot lighter) into the sky.

Hashgate had given the good Shep a lift this evening in his highly polished, finally free of all those tar spots, sparkly clean inside and out, car. “It must have taken me about two hours to get all the stuff off it, clean and wax it this afternoon.” He droned. “Still. It was worth the effort. Look at the gleam on the paint.” Shep nodded and leaned forward to admire the silver sheen. There was an ever-nearing drone. The very air began to vibrate. The earth shook. Shep and Hashgate looked at each other in horror as a monster shadow passed across the car. Then… SPLOTTT!! The awful payload spread its energy (and much more besides) smack across the windscreen and roof. Shep turned to Hashgate. “Lucky that windscreen was there or I’d’ve been covered.” Hashgate said nothing. He was thinking about surface to albatross missiles.

Crikey! I’d better get on with the Hash before I run out of space. In fact, we nearly ran out of space in the car park – there were so many new (and very old) faces. Nice to see them as we trotted off and up the hill for a change. It was pleasantly surprising to find ourselves following HeyBabe and Flash as they led us on our way. Even more surprising when we caught up with Septic, Mrs. Blobby and Utopia, Utopia sadly hiding that fine pair of legs beneath some track bottoms. The trail was twisting and turning like a drunken Foghorn after finding he’s accidentally stumbled into a gay bondage club and can’t see the exit in the dark. Matthew, Kevin, Cheating, Iceman and I fetched up at the entrance to a bosky wood with a fairly obvious false going off to the left. It seemed churlish to ignore the Hares’ handiwork so I trotted along it and duly found the pink (yup; the flour was pink!) ‘F’. The Lord (on this occasion) smiled down on me, for as I ran back Motox, Kevin, Iceman et al were all running back towards me, having found a bar or a false. We scattered through the trees and down trails with not a blob in sight until, half a mile along, one appeared. I must congratulate Iceman here since his blood-curdling, epiglottal Hibernian yodelling of the On could be heard for miles (we saw no wildlife at all during the Hash) and only the deaf-as-a-post Cyclogical kept whinging, “Keep calling at the front!”. Mr Blobby suddenly popped up around here. Apparently, the Blobsters had fallen victim to Dumper’s keen navigation skills. No-one had told him you can’t use a sextant when the sun has gone down. HeyBabe and Shep also popped up, having somehow connived their way to the front once more.

And here it gets surreal again. I found myself in the enjoyable company of Centaur, Lonely and Beaver, discussing hernias. Whether it was the sudden, long tarmac lane whirling its way downhill to the nostril-wrinkling aroma of the nearby pig field I know not. But Lonely suddenly imparted one of those snippets of knowledge that will stick in the mind like poop to a blanket. It seems that, having accidentally bought a copy of ‘New Scientist’ instead of ‘Crumpet n’Jugs’ he felt he ought to read it and stumbled on a little known fact. It seems that the ancient Greek male aristocracy only wanted to father males and were under the mistaken impression that sperm from the right testicle produced boys while the left, girls. Consequently, (cross your legs you blokes) they would lop off the left one. As we agreed at the time, some of them would have been doubly disappointed at the birth of a girl!

We finally piled off uphill away from the road, following the likes of Zebedee and Baldrick until we all stopped dead at a meeting of tracks. Rather useful this as we met Julia, Effin, Cap’n Haystax and other members of the sedate school of Hashing. As well as the mad buggers Itsyor and Fiddler who had arrived late and run non-stop to catch up with us. They certainly got a rest. Premature, Matthew and I went this way, SlowSucker that. Centaur another. Zebedee yet another. Not a sausage. We knew roughly where the pub was but no-one could find the trail until Cap’n Haystax and the walkers put us out of our misery and started leading the way down a trail that somebody (no names, no pack drill) had called a false on! We duly pelted down the bumpy bits of shiggy smiling amusedly as Zebedee hurtled past in a vain attempt to catch up with the much younger Matthew. The pub was in sight and Caboose and I eased in together. That is, until he started wheezing on the final uphill slope and admitted he thought he might have SARS. “’Bye friend.” I called over my shoulder and zoomed into the car park faster than either Matthew or Zebedee.

Well, the whole damn thing was quite painless and didn’t take too long – unlike the earlier goolie-lopping no doubt. We have a grandmother and some old geezer with a grey beard to thank for the evening’s enjoyment. Who said the Hash was getting younger?

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Motox presented the following (apart from the first one presented by Foghorn) :-

Up and Coming

Uptake

Moonlight Hash

Friday, May 16^th is at Ms. Whiplash’s. Not at Dribbler’s. Numbers limited so call young Whippers to let her know you would like to come.