The Enchanted

HeyBabe ShaginaJag(spectating) WrongCircle Hashgate Septic Dumper Spex Steph Helleth David Baldrick Cerberus Premature Pinky Bev 2Bob PuddleDuck Motox Foghorn Chopstix Glittertits Pissquick Muff C5 TinOpener SlowSucker HoneyMonster Lonely and dog Beaver Spot HitchHiker Karen Paella Dribbler Mrs. Blobby Utopia Uplift Itsyor Fiddler Mike Angella Joshua Ms. Whiplash Salome Cloggs Caboose DamnDickheadDive … and Chopstix’ grandson, baby Ryan (aaah)

Now You See It; Now You Don’t

As an example of prestidigitation it was second to none. The aptly named Slippery acted as lovely assistant to that magical master of the sleight-of-hand, BGB. They managed to make most of the (infinitesimally tiny) flour blobs disappear and an ‘F’ that I found with my very own eyes vanish not five minutes later! Presumably in a puff of smoke. At least we now know that BGB does not stand for Bloody Great Blobs. If he had been wearing a top hat and cloak and Slippery a skimpy costume with glittery tights we would have been (a) not surprised, and (b) jolly interested in the assistant.

We started by welcoming new girl Steph and new blokes Mike and WrongCircle to our event. It was also nice to welcome back Karen after a long hibernation. BGB opened the proceedings with a flourish by conjuring up from nowhere a Long and a Short trail. Then followed this with the confusing statement, “If anyone wants the short, stick with Slippery.” We scratched our heads and let Fiddler and Itsyor find the expected false down the too obvious track. We started searching for flour on the first of the tarmac trails. Talk about well hidden! The tiniest pinch would be revealed under a lot of concealing foliage. Then Caboose and Foghorn would run for half a mile to the next little bloblet. Foghorn called us to slow up since the pack was strung out so much. We finally reached a check and I elected to go straight on. The ‘F’ duly appeared and we all shot back and into a large field filled with grassy clumps and not much flour. SlowSucker and Foghorn led the way round the thing with various people like Lonely short-cutting. Unlike Uplift who is a true Hasher and hardy runner. Either way, it did no-one any good for we were called back to the field entrance and pointed up the road where the False was. I say ‘was’ since, by the time 2Bob, Puddleduck, Bev and I got there it had completely disappeared! Amazing! Slippery was standing quite casually at a check another mile or so on so I staggered up to her gasping, “I’m sure there was an ‘F’ back there.” “Oh, there was.” She replied, coolly raising a coquettish eyebrow. “I scuffed it out.” A sound like a camel in the throes of conjugal ecstasy escaped me. Could it be that this sloe-eyed beauty had committed the heinous crime? No doubt she had been under the evil spell of BGB. But how could a man who cavils at a bar-5 do such a thing? Pity ShutupWally wasn’t there or he would have never heard the last of it. As it was SlowSucker, incensed at the subterfuge, forgot his manners and called Slippery a “silly cow”. Let us not forget that however true something may be a gentleman would never mention it. He was duly punished at Down Downs.

We carried on along yet another road and Cerberus tried to stick her finger up my nose as I trotted past. I suppose it could have been much worse, especially if she hadn’t cut her fingernails. We hared on and Fiddler eventually found the trail from a very sneaky check by the golf course, closely followed by Angella and Joshua and a host of general pack members. Except Karen, who was on the other side of the fence. I stopped to assist, feeling it was my journalistic duty to take the p**s. She declined my suggestion that she took the fence in one mighty Red Rum style leap, complete with flared nostrils and a small chap astride her (as it were), and decided to fling one leg over in the vain hope that the other might take the hint and follow. It didn’t, so she had to be heaved over before the fence collapsed. It was around here that Motox and Premature joined us while Spot (still on drugs) leapt ahead of us in a Nijinsky-like manner with a permanent grin on his face. “On On!” He warbled semi-consciously as he spotted some white efflorescence (Premature’s word, not mine) on a brick in a wall. We gently broke the news to him and led him back into the care of the Hash community, supplying him with a few nice crayons and a BH³ straitjacket. We now had to run hard to catch up with the pack and we reached them just as Slippery popped up again, pointing out the longer and shorter trails. Sadly, a group of us: Baldrick, Helleth, SlowSucker, Premature, Spot, Fiddler and I raced off through the bluebells having found one single blob. We raced further. Then a bit more. Then just some more for good measure. My congrats to Helleth here for stonking along in(s)anely with the rest of us for we were not hanging about. We must have done a mile the wrong way by the time we saw Mike short-cutting back to the pub and the rest of the pack. By the time we got to The Bull at Barkham Premature and I were all for doing the Short, rather than the Long split, that we found marked in a bus shelter. Of course, we had to do the blasted long, didn’t we? I cruised along with Steve for a bit who, having run eleven miles off-road the day before was not going to prove too challenging. We all looped down the hill and right back up it in the woods, meeting up with a casual-looking Dumper who pointed us in the right direction. At least it was off-road. But it did turn into a fair old race largely up, rather than down, hills. SlowSucker, Fiddler and Premature were hammering along as if there was a prize to be had and we seemed to go miles through slowly darkening woods. Eventually, the On Inn appeared and it was only another ¾ of a mile to go before we ended up staggering into the car park to see Honeymonster, Dave, Pinky, HeyBabe and Pissquick lounging about languidly. How they do that, I’ll never know. My consolation for all the effort was to have two attractive ladies offer to (a) nobble me, and (b) help me get my shorts off. Unfortunately, I wasn’t too sure what the first meant and I was too knackered for the second. Oh well; there’s always next week.

We must thank our leaders of legerdemain (the Hares) for the magical mystery tour. Like all good conjouring tricks it left us amazed and confused and with the question in our minds, “How on earth did they do that!?” On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Motox presented the following, using fine beer kindly donated by Bicester Hash :-

Up and Coming

A Walk In The Chilterns

Sunday, June 1^st at 11:00. Gridref 754898. Starting at Southend, North of Henley – park at North end of the village. There will be a pub stop for lunch (or bring food). See Motox or call 0118 958 3887.