Bali Hash House Harriers 2

“Eez Comink Zee Irish!”

Many moons ago, so many I don’t want to get mathematical about it, I stayed in a quaint hotel with a balcony overlooking the main square of the main town on the Island of Ios in Greece. One pleasant Aegean late afternoon the above panicked cry issued from a German tourist heralding the arrival at the square of around 100 – odd Irishmen (and they never fail to be odd) brandishing purloined rakes, brooms, mops – anything they could get their hands on - looking like a pack of angry cleaning and gardening villagers in a Frankenstein movie and led by one of their number with a blood soaked bandage around his head, sporting two black eyes and a thick lip.

From my perch above I watched them enter three tourist pubs that gave onto the square (obviously the injured feller didn’t have a crystal clear memory of the exact location of his previous evening’s trauma) before they found the right one. Raised voices and the sound of smashing glass ensued and suddenly two huge, hairy Greek bouncers were ejected ignominiously from said establishment into the street and set upon by scores of frenzied and pissed off Paddys, miffed Michaels and tanked up Timothys (I didn’t say alcohol wasn’t involved). It wasn’t as if the bouncers had picked on the wrong Paddy, it’s just that there is no right Paddy to pick on. The Greek police attempted to intervene in this startling donnybrook and the last I detected of their presence they were capless, roughed up unceremoniously and using their lower getaway sticks to considerable advantage in fleeing the hyped up Hibernians.

Memories of this diverting event weren’t exactly evoked by last week’s run at Canang Sari, in fact we were hard pressed to find an O’ Flaherty or two to rub together on Saturday, but I do remember the date on which these events conspired to transpire on that long ago blue Cycladian hari: it was March 17, and as most of you plastic Paddys who like a green beer and a leprechaun every so often know, St Patrick’s Day, which explains a lot.

So let’s stop fookin’ around and get to the run. It was set by that tallest of leprechauns for Hari Paddy, Barnacle Balls, and a couple of Paddys whose Celtic credentials don’t exactly strike me as convincing, i.e. Blow Joe and Wankervitch (O’ Dude, oh dudes). There may be a Colleen in the closet or a Patrick in the woodpile of these two somewhere lost to history, but I’m going to reserve judgement until the forensic evidence is presented.

It was a “craiquer” of a run, a genuine County Corker and one of the best in recent memory, if you’re memory is as recent as mine. There was a LOT of jungle and fittingly paddies involved, dramatic glimpses of sweeping and deep valleys, and at least three crossings of the Ayung River. A whiff of danger was here and there what with slipperiness and alarmingly steep drop offs and gorges quite close to said slipperiness; enough to set the pulse aflutter and the testes arising when you dared to look down, anyway. There was one interesting bridge crossing on which 4 or 5 bamboos were lashed together with some kind of tape which caused a certain Harriet to lose her balance by tripping on it and perform some nice Sikorsky - style arm waving and slicing before being grabbed and pulled to the bank by the very Hasher who was trying to assist her crossing in the first place. I almost screwed the pooch on the tape myself, and as unkind a sentiment as it may be, I was glad the gal went before me for a demonstration of what not to do. This too was a decent drop and would have ended in tears if anybody had misplaced the plot. To be sure, to be sure.

Young Balderdash was confined to the short last week with his old fart dad because of a vicious slice to the knee from a razor sharp bamboo length protruding from the ground. There was blood everywhere, it was like a scene from “The Walking Dead’’ or “Master Chef New Zealand”. Five stitches later at 2 o’clock in the morning at the Bali Royal hospital in Renon, he regained full composure. Not that he ever completely lost it, in fact he finished the short, running, enjoyed some questionable circle limericks, ate a steak and watched t.v. before complaining of a “slightly stiff leg”. If it had been me, I’d have been on an emergency evacuation flight to Singapore with tubes sticking out of every orifice I could demand they stick out of.

There were deafening thunderclaps during the Grand Master’s circle appearance. It was as if the Almighty was offended by the G.M.’s continuing defiance of the odds, gravity and being in as lusty and rude health and voice as he is. How dare he? Once again Night Jar was in vintage form and conducted affairs as diverse as shrivings, history lessons and pornographic poesy with the energetic posture of a man a quarter of his years. A force of nature indeed, or against it, I’m not sure. Jangle Balls also held us in sway with the tasteful “Mother and Fucker, Alive, Alive O” and “If You’re Irish” (“you swear like a trooper, you use the “c” word cuntstantly”). Some things never change, at least not St. Patrick’s day on the Hash in Bali, and I’d almost put money on it, in the Greek Islands on Ios on that same hallowed hari as well.

On on,
J.B.