Reading Road Runners etc

Premature Cerberus Hashgate Margaret Dave Lilo Tinopener and dog Emma Quack Desperate Eugene Spot Lemming Mother Theresa Spex LoudonTasteless Tw*nky BlowJob Iceman C5 Dumper Septic Glittert*ts P*ssQuick Motox ScarletPimpernel Vlad Drac OldDog SlackBladder Fiddler Foghorn John Dutch Donut Sh*tShoveller Cheating Bomber Posh Kathy Oliver The Tremblers BlouseBlazer WhiteFang Hamlet Fukawe Florence CouchPotato Cloggs NonStick Janet

The Reading Road Runners Hash

ShutupWally had made the elementary mistake of advertising his Hash as ‘not suitable for Reading Road Runners’. Silly boy. The entire battalion of ‘em turned up wearing their awful green (sorry guys – don’t like green) running vests and tops and stood around at the Circle in a group like a multi-legged frog, some legs looking more froglike than others. We hadn’t realised that the infiltration was so advanced and I remarked so to ScarletPimpernel (aka RentBoy) who admitted that it was quite nice to ‘come out of the closet’. His words, not mine. It may be a takeover bid but worried Hashers should get a warm glow from the knowledge that the Road Runners would rather spend their Sunday morning Hashing than tramping depressing miles over boring tarmac, feverishly checking their heartrate monitors and worrying about over-supination. Hashers and their friends, of course, don’t worry about anything. Was Foghorn worried about his injured back? Not really. Was BlouseBlazer worried about possibly growing another foot? Nah. Actually, a number of excited lady Hashers overheard this, made entirely the wrong assumption and followed him closely round the trail. Was Lemming worried about being the only bald Oompah Loompah in the Pack? Who knows? But he certainly appeared to be covered in chocolate after we had finished. It was good to welcome some virgins today: Janet and John (no, not the one’s you’re thinking of. John’s a friend of Foghorn) and Kathy, who is something of a demon in the world of wind-surfing but freely admitted that she can’t run for toffee. I assured her she would fit right in.

The Hares had organised an interesting run for us around a number of follies set in a mixture of woodland and sculpted grassy terraces. The follies had titles such as Samson’s Temple, The Ethedra (ethedra is a small evergreen shrub originating from Asia) and Armillary Sphere which, as everybody knows, is a skeletal celestial sphere used as a teaching tool and crude computer. To add spice to the day’s event Wally and Honeymonster had hidden Italian dough loveballs, wrapped in foil, around the follies, the idea being that the ‘gentlemen’ should find them, show them to a lady Hasher of their choice and request a kiss. Certain ‘gentlemen’s’ eyes lit up at this prospect of officially sanctioned snogging. Discreet breath sprays were applied. One or two tongues flickered out, slicked back an unkempt eyebrow and flickered back in again. Some rare leg stretching was seen, the idea being to improve the chances of getting to the folly first. One amongst us had no need of running hell-for-leather to improve his chances. Dumper had prior knowledge from his ski-ing holiday with Wally and had been out and bought a handful of the little dough packets before the Hash. Stephen Potter would have smiled approvingly at this example of one-upmanship. Mind you, Dumper may have had the wherewithal but lacked the technique and opportunity. He was spotted early on clambering damply out of a water-filled ditch – not something generally likely to attract the ladies – and later Septic stuck to him like a leech. Motox was even more devious, going round any number of ladies with only lumps of silver paper in his hand. Excellent stuff. He’s to be applauded. Spot and Posh provided me with perhaps the most fascinating anthropological studies of the day. Iceman, already the bright-eyed owner of one of the elusive loveballs and a snogger of Fukawe, and I had trotted soggily past a folly when we noticed Spot suddenly dart to a place of concealment, grasp the silver ball therein and hold it aloft in triumph, probably much as Arthur did on pulling the sword from the stone. He scanned the horizon like a retriever looking for a plump pheasant and his eye fell on the unsuspecting WhiteFang who was making gentle progress on yonder rise. Not, of course, that I think of WhiteFang as a plump pheasant – it’s just a simile, honest. Anyway, Spot stood stock still for a moment, pointing at his target. Then as if an unseen master had called “Fetch!” he was off in a welter of legs. The girl stood no chance. He whipped out his loveball, showed it to her and applied the lips. It was obviously good since he went in again for seconds. Like my old Dad used to say, “If you get the chance, fill your boots.” Equally interesting was Posh’s vain attempt later on the corner of a wet street to sell me C5’s used loveball. Now I’ve never thought of Posh as a street hawker but the way she sidled up to me, opened one side of her jacket to show me the goods (um, as it were) and gave me the pitch were really quite professional. Mind you, she needs to work on her patter. She’s not going to get away with, “I say, Hashgate. Care to purchase C5’s loveball, what? I can sell it fearfully cheap, don’t you know.” down Brick Lane. And quite what she was doing with C5’s used loveball I really didn’t like to ask.

The trail kept the Pack generally well together and incidents were rife and almost too many to record. There was Quack who failed dismally to squeeze his frame through a 5-bar gate and got stuck for a while. SlackBladder, smugly trying to prove to the ladies that he was much slimmer, then forced himself through the gap like toothpaste out of a tube, breaking only three ribs and scraping off his goolies in the process. Or what about the underpass that Bomber, Fukawe and I got suckered in to checking out before finding the False on the other side? The reverberating qualities of this excellent tunnel are the best we have ever experienced and we explored the three second echo to full effect, Bomber finishing with a fine bass version of ‘O Sole Mio’. Then there was the somewhat surreal meeting between Drac, Premature, Cerberus, myself, umpteen small dogs and Brian Blessed! Not someone you’d expect to meet on the Hash. He uttered a booming and friendly, “Keeeep goooiiiing!” and shuffled on his way. We should have met him in the underpass – that would have been some sound. The Longer runners also had an excellent and nicely confusing trot through driving rain and good terrain the other side of the motorway (we used a bridge to get there) before the sun came out and we all trotted damply back over the bridge to close the loop and rejoin the main pack. Nice loop, Hares. Lovely Church on the way.

Perhaps the most interesting place we visited in the Folly area was the Australian feature. Approached between the walls of a steep, man-made valley and surrounded by Aborigine-inspired standing rocks a steepish hillock with a folly on top provided a Regroup in a dense planting amongst every kind of eucalyptus. Wally, backed up by horticulturist, Oliver told us that there are more types of eucalyptus there than anywhere else in the world, including Kew Gardens. There’s a fact to stun your (grand)children.

Space considerations mean I have to finish here. Pity. There was an awful lot happening on this Hash, which was excellent. We must congratulate ShutupWally and Honeymonster ( I did like his Bar laying while we were actually running!) for providing us with such entertainment. Though for goodness sake don’t tell Wally I said so – I’ll never hear the last of it.

Congratulations also to HashMash LoudonTasteless for providing us with an aprés Hash repast of bread, cheeses and fine apple tart, washed down with refreshing lager. And to Glittert*ts for his impromptu reverse striptease during the Down Downs. At least we had eaten before he did this.

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

At the woodland car park standin RA Motox presented the following in his own inimitable manner :-

Cerberus just breasted (can I say that?) the tape first

Donut got the ‘most snogged’ award – a bar of soap to wash her mouth out!

Up and Coming