January 2014 | By: The Scrutable Scribe
Rrrabbie Burns Waltzes Matilda, or, the Return of Every Bastard…'
Firstly I would like to personally thank, in other words strangle, whoever invented Windows 7 without which you would not be reading this dispatch and I would perhaps be clinging to my last shred of sanity. As it is this “operating system” is driving me comprehensively bat shit by randomly causing entire lines of prose, phrases, thoughts, animals, family members, bank accounts to disappear at every 4th or 5th stroke of the keyboard, like it did just then...AAAAARRRRGGGHH! I believe someone named William Gates is ultimately responsible for this. Did you know you can rearrange the letters in “William Gates” to spell “I’ll aim wet gas”, “I mate all wigs”, “Tail wag slime” and “Alias elm twig”. Oh I forgot “I am a swell git”. You can do this on a computer operating system, you know, if you can get the @#$%ing thing to work properly.
Apologies for that rant, I usually wait until I’ve at least introduced the topic before so flagrantly digressing, but I’ll make a special exception in this case…now where was I? Ah yes, the Australia Day run, which actually fell on Scottish poet “Rabbie” (to his mates) Burns’ birthday as we were fascinated to discover and which we shall later discuss. A cast of thousands showed up at Tampaksiring (how unfortunately similar to a certain hygiene product this town’s name is) missing only Charlton Heston, Cecil B. De Mille and Gerry Mathers as The Beaver. Hashers descended in their droves perhaps expecting lavish freebies such as tee shirts and gristly satay (whoopdie doodle) getting instead, an Aussie “poy” with which nothing was wrong I’ll have you know, and tomato sauce for their troubles, if they were lucky. As far as the run went however, they got VERY lucky.
Hare for this august occasion was none other than the estimable Whitebait, and what a run it was. Ladies and genitalia, if I say this was a fantastic run I would be doing the poor man a grave disservice. This run was epoch making, iconic, this was an historic occasion: the Phar Lap of runs, like Rio Di Janiero it was the Run of January, certainly run of the year (not to damn with faint praise or anything as it is only the 27th of said month). Seriously though folks, it was unanimously a Bobby Dazzler. Location, location, location – scenery, scenery, scenery, ups, ups, ups, downs, downs, downs, pant, pant, pant, gasp, gasp, gasp.
True to the finest of old Hash traditions it was one run only, plenty of checks, and quite the social occasion as it kept small packs together in a mutual struggle with at least one or two other humans with whom to commiserate, to argue with, to bitch at and generally actually talk to. “Eek, unheard of!” I hear all the latter day lean and sweaty “competitors” utter, recoiling in horror, “Why?” they say. Thanks Whitebait I say, for reminding us what a great Hash is supposed to be, ENJOYABLE, in other words. There wasn’t anyone who didn’t enjoy it, people I bump into on the street (Jln. Civvy, sorry Sippie) are still babbling about how great it was.
It started as an outrageously scenic descent into a ridiculously green and beautiful valley of padis by which professional photographers and landscape painters would be brought to orgasm. Bugger me if it didn’t just keep getting better after that. There was not an inch of this hash that wasn’t astonishingly pretty, interesting and just challenging enough without being silly about it. Extensive views of endless palm forests, terrific jungle and concrete subec running, trickling waterways everywhere. Where was it again? Shoot, I haven’t mentioned that yet – Yayasan Senang Hati, which I take to mean “The Foundation for Being Happy about Liver”, I think.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the circle. Everybody and their dogs (unfortunately for non-doggie lovers, and I take this parenthetic opportunity to beseech dog bearers once again to KEEP THEM ON A @#$%^&2* LEASH) showed up. Of particular note was Capt. Pugwash, suami of Sex on the Desk, who had been AWOL for two (two!) years engineering something. He observed that it may as well have been a week what with Labia, Night Jar, Disco Wanker and - wait for it – Wooden Eye variously holding circular sway. Yes, to top off the perfect run, the prodigal W.E. had returned and it was great to have his inimitable quirky and sardonic wit keeping us on our toes once more, sorely missed indeed.
Night Jar entertained us at length with Robert Burns’ poetry recitals which may have been just a scintilla incongruous in the context of Ocker Day, though we have been known to employ the occasional Sidchrome spanner (“Ya canna hand a man a grander spanner”) and snack on the odd shortbread biscuit down under. Disco Wanker presented an 80th birthday cake to a hasher of some antiquity, obviously. Even Jangle Balls got into the act and musically celebrated a condition suffered by 6 out of 10 Australians, constipation, with a jaunty Billy Joel number: “For the longest Time”. Other than those diversions it was all green and yellow footballs, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars, Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie, Oy, oy, oy, etc. etc. etc.
On on on.
Next week: Imlek and The Year of The Nag with Multigrip at Sobongan (furlongs away). Don’t miss it!
