Attendees

Any ideas, anyone?

Some Days you Eat the Bear. Other Days The Bear Eats You

How true a statement that is. On a personal level, Monday was definitely the day I was to be the focus of more than a spot of ursine chomping. I may not have known that the Royals were playing Man. City at home that night but I really shouldn’t have congratulated myself for getting in the left-hand lane of the road leading past the Madjeski Stadium and thus careening past the poor slobs desperately waiting to turn off right into the car parks. Oh no. Pride before a fall. Every cloud etc. And of course that bloody great big bear sitting furrily silent in the back seat flicking his index talon at a shiny, exposed incisor with a soft ‘ting’ while making his choice from the exposed flesh in front of him. The traffic slowed to a halt. Went nowhere for 20 minutes. The bear and I inhaled approximately 80 litres of diesel particulates. It was 7 o’clock. Hmm. Might be a bit late for the Hash start. Going to have to run fast to catch up – especially since it’s a bit dim. Switched on Zane Lowe on Radio 1. Great! The Killers live in Blackpool from the weekend. We move a car’s length. Then stop again for another 20 minutes of CO with a bit of S to add some flavour. Great view of that set of lorry wheels. And so on and so on until we finally scraped ourselves wearily up to the last roundabout before the short rise to the roundabout over the M4. It was dark. It was 8:50. It was as stuffed with traffic as Mr Creosote was with food. Not even a ‘waffer-thin’ mint could have squeezed between the wheels and metal. If this road was the artery into the heart of the M4 it was clogged with carlestorol and ready for a major attack of vangina. I figured it out. At least another ½ hour to even get to the M4 roundabout. God knows how long to get on and over it. Twenty minutes to Silchester if the engine could stand the revs and we didn’t end up in a ditch. Find the Village Hall. Change rapidly out of the running gear. Bright-eyed Hope shrugged its shoulders and slunk off in defeat. I indicated right. Finally got across the other two lanes after another ten minutes. Backtracked towards town with a wry grimace… and offered up my neck for the waiting fangs.

And not a police personage in sight. If anybody knows why there was such a problem please let me know. The AA and Reading’s traffic webcams assured me later there was nothing wrong.

So apologies, but I could not make the AGM. From a glance at the rapidly produced and excellent Lonely-Minutes it all seems to have gone off very smoothly, with little of the expected back-stabbing, corridor power-broking and elbow-jabbing climbing up the slippery pole to the pinnacle of ultimate supremacy. Blouse Blazer was voted in as Grand Master, Ultimate Supremo, Czar of All The Hash, He Who Must Be Obeyed, Keeper of The Golden Sausage etc with no dissension. In fact, just so you know which Committee Member you can pick on the table below shows the Hasher, their Committee position and some helpful reasons why you might want to have ago at ‘em:-

Short and sweet this week, then. And very self-indulgent. I shall have to spend more time this week in Ms Whiplash’s flagellation and macramé class. See you all at next week’s first autumn Sunday Hash. It may be the best one so far this year…

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

Dunno about the Hash tonight but no doubt RA Simple presented the outgoing Committee with a pint each during the AGM. I do hope everyone enjoyed their free drink.

Up and Coming