Confused.disorg

Donut Swallow Hashgate Dumper Septic Bomber Posh The Tremblers Glittertits Pissquick Baldrick BlouseBlazer Motox Simple Baldrick OldFart Dunny Iceman Cheating Centaur Young Sam Vertigo Handful TinOpener Dribbler Butterfly Scarlet Pimpernel Cloggs NonStick HeyBabe Mhairi (! Think this is a deliberately difficult name to try and confuse the Scribe – it worked) Quack Lemming Mother Septic JustMoist Theresa Liz Florence OldDog Centaur CabinBuoy Pat LoudonTasteless Whinge TC Poison Ivy Caboose Flash OldFart

Alley… Oops!

BH³ thanks thanks Little Stiffy and Slackbladder for laying the Trail today for Hamlet and Fukawe. Fukawe, our very best wishes for a speedy recovery and we very much look forward to seeing you next time you Hash.

Is it just me or is the Hash going West? Bagnor, Rotherwick, Ashford Hill, Charter Alley, Pamber Heath have all/will be featured as event locations recently. Could the word ‘clustering’ be applied here? Perhaps. Not that I’d have a word said against our excellent Trail Mistress, Florence, who is known during Run Sheet compilation to regularly tear out clumps of hair in frustration as would-be Hares change venue and co-Hares with all the randomness of Brownian Motion. You could probably apply that term to the Pack’s movements today as they attempted to follow the twistings and meanderings of today’s Trail. This was especially true of BlouseBlazer who trotted off in entirely the opposite direction when an early ‘On On’ was called. Mind you, Centaur and I had also wandered off completely the wrong way from the On Out even though, by ¼ of a mile or so, we realised we had more chance of seeing a pair of pink gnus playing a hand of canasta by the side of the road than even a single flour blob. There were two Regroups, a Long Trail from the second of these. This was where NonStick called ‘On Hare’ while we maundered desperately through ploughed land searching for flour from a Field check. Since we had already run approximately 10 miles or so and were dragging our exhausted carcasses up the sticky mud hill our spirits were quite lifted. Pity really that it turned our to be a creature with big, sticky-out ears and feet to match. No, Cheating had gone the other way. It was a real hare and it bounded off with more energy than any of us could summon collectively.

Talking of sticky mud, I must congratulate our Hares on a piece of duplicity worthy of the most devious Will O’ the Wisp. This character from folklore is said to lure unwary travellers into dangerous situation. Usually into marshy ground. It was while the majority of the Pack streamed along a fairly obvious forest path that your Scribe (ever a slave to his inquisitive nature) spotted a flour blob on a tree to the left of the path. Slipping to a halt, he quizzed the nearby Little Stiffy. “There’s a flour blob on that tree.” He opined sagaciously. “There is.” She replied, cocking an eyebrow and trying to appear innocent. “Ha!” thought the clever Scribe and crashed off downhill into the forest, spotting another blob on a log. Making his way to it he uttered a triumphant “On On”. He stepped over it, seeing only a further blob across a patch of… old leaves perhaps? SPLOTTTT!! The left leg disappeared thigh deep. The odour that burst forth from the disturbed matter furled the nostrils, curled the hair and whirled upwards, piercing a small hole in what’s left of the ozone layer. “GNNAAAAHHH!” Gasped the Scribe, with feeling. This was even worse than when Baldrick cleared an entire settee of people with a single trouser cough at the 1500^th disco evening. It was so bad that the laughing horde of Hashers 10 metres away reeled back in horror as the invisible cloud molested their nostrils. Trying only to breathe out, the Scribe managed to suck the (now wetly black) leg from the morass and stand on a crumbling fallen branch. He scoured the area for firm footing. “Aha! Over that way should do it.” He thought, and extended the right foot. SPLOTTTT!! “Oh bugger!” Another fetid cloud plumed upward and spread its blight over every living thing. Including Simple who had to stop laughing like a drain and back off to find fresh air. I finally managed to squelch out of the sucking quagmire, leaving the bodies of long-dead things to settle once more. Fortunately, I managed to scrape some of the stuff off on to the back of Lemming’s shirt and most of the rest off at the edge of a rather cold lake, where Simple (him again!) exhorted the sympathetic Vertigo to “Go on, Vertigo. Push ‘im in.” Dumper, particularly, seemed to find it amusing that I smelt like Old Fart. Nice one, Hares.

I must give a mention to Dribbler, who C5 and I found front-running at one point. He told me he had lost a Stone since the 1500^th and was now running like an absolute demon. He also told Handful that he was a Martini Hasher – any time, any place, anywhere. Oh dear.

A curious mark appeared down a long, leaf-strewn path and we stopped to decipher it. HeyBabe was sure it was a ‘69’ but I’m sure she was looking at things the wrong way round. It turned out to be ‘FH’ for ‘Fish Hook’. Pity really, since none of us could see the FH and even if we had, we wouldn’t have understood what it stood for. And since all the FRB’s had come and gone the concept of reversing the front runners became somewhat academic. The best laid plans etc…

We had been going a very long time and the legs were beginning to give out. Lemming and I ensured we had to walk along the tarmac by pretending to have an erudite conversation. We approached a tweedy lady pushing a petrol lawn mower across her verge. We gave her a cheery View Halloo and she said something indistinct in return. I strolled politely over. “Beg pardon Mum?” I essayed. For she looked fairly wealthy and there was a remote chance of a fried egg sandwich. “You’re runners, aren’t you?” She questioned, in upper class vowels. “Yus mum.” I yokelled, wringing an imaginary cap. “Then you should be running, shouldn’t you?” She replied with unarguable logic. I looked at Lemming. He looked at me. We broke into a trot, scraping and touching our forelocks. Except Lemming hasn’t got a forelock. Just skin. He touched his… I’ll leave it there. Either way, chastened, we lumbered on and Quack and Handful easily caught us up. Luckily, we were but a sunny field away from the pub and we staggered gratefully across it to the car park. Thank goodness we had only a 10-minute walk to the pub with no car park…

In thanks to our Hares I’ll leave you with just one thought. If you’ve got a SlackBladder are you bound to have a Little Stiffy?

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Simple frightened the life out of everyone in the pub as he pushed his way out, bearing the trayful of Down Downs. Strong men blanched and ladies fainted as he urged one of our band to usher BH³ into the garden. “Get ‘em out Baldrick!” he boomed. He then extemporized like the consummate old pro that he is and presented the following :-

Sensitively Downed but with spillage

Up and Coming