Bali Hash House Harriers 2

Twenty Thousand Leagues under Pura Dalem Bonkasa

I don’t know about you but I have some questions that demand definitive answers, immediately please, if you don’t mind, thank you. For example: Why hasn’t Tarzan got a beard? How come when Superman gets shot at, bullets bounce off his chest, but when the baddie throws his empty gun at Superdude, Superbloke has to duck? Huh, huh? What’s the answer if the question is “Cock, Robin”? Clue: it’s got something to do with Batman (or Buttman). If I were standing on top of a blazing skyscraper with a woman, any woman, I’m thinking of my lovely wife here, would she say “Wait a minute, there’s something on your chin”, produce a tissue (pop up a wet one, perhaps) and proceed to scour the offending area? Would I say “thanks” before we leapt to our mutual deaths? Probably. When was the last time you saw a handkerchief for sale in a retail outlet anywhere in the world? (answer: 1965). Was there a hit song in that year by Tommy James and the Shondells called “My Baby Wanks me with a Hankie”? No, there was not. It was called “My Baby Does the Hanky Panky”.

Now for The Most Daunting Question of the Day: Why couldn’t any two accounts of exactly how long the very short short run last week at Puri Dalem Bonkasa agree with one another? Among distances being touted were 4.1 km, 3.7 km, 2.9 km, 1. nothing km, 2 furlongs, 6 fathoms and 20.000 leagues. With all these “tool” assisted runners these days you would think, wouldn’t you, that someone would come up with a definitive, unarguable, absolute bloody final word? (Humph.) But no, fisticuffs could have broken out at any minute in that fiercely contested debate under the wantilan. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump would have been closer to an accord on taxation policy.

Breaking News! (Again!) All candidates for the U.S. Presidential election have now named their running mates after a pathetically desperate and insignificant surprise announcement by Texas Republican Senator Dead Snooze (and I don’t for the life of me remember who he put forward). Donald T. Rump has chosen Martin Boorman and Billary Clinton has named the Lehman Brothers. Burning Sanders is considering Karl Marx and Lenoid Brezhnev.

Where were we? Bonkasa I think. Well, you have to admit it was certainly different than what we usually expect from Bonkers. “And what do we usually expect from Bonkers?” you would be well within your rights to ask. “Okay”, it would be perfectly legal for me to reply: “riverside trails, spiral staircases, rivers, maybe even a lively one, a couple of hundred steps down to and up from such bodies of water, views of them, or it, from on high, a Banyan tree forest and a very clean and quaint village on the on in. “Are you telling us that we experienced none of the above on the run last Saturday?” you might retort. “Well, yes.” I would reply somewhat defensively. “But this is not to say that there was anything at all wrong with the run in itself”. “What are you saying? Go on, spit it out, you bastard”, you might possibly angrily shoot back brandishing a coconut cleaver. “Nothing, nothing”, I would say covering my head with my hands and crawling under the beer truck.

Look, enough bloody nonsense, orroight? There was a nice bit of padi or two, there was quite the challenging up up in the beginning section of the run. The pack wasn’t too far apart at any point, there was very little garbage and the paper and chalk was more than adequate for the job at hand. The locals were friendly, even the barking dogs weren’t that convincingly threatening. So it was short, so what? I, myself, personally had just gotten off a plane of the (AAAARGHH!) Air Asia variety, which was packed like a WW2 cattle train and had passengers wielding “hand luggage” the size of Volkswagens, and I wasn’t up to much more than a 22 chain (2.5 yards) run anyway, okay? Sheesh. So thanks to our Anzac, Balinese Animal and Obscure English Poet’s Death Day Hares Prawn Star and his mates. I for one, enjoyed the Bejesus out of it and the plentiful beer and circle that followed.

We were entertained mightily by the likes of Grand Master Nightjar and R.A. Dancing Queen. By the way, a couple of things on the subject of Nightjar. A: It has reached my knowledge that a website exists which not only extols the virtues of his books of Balinese birds and butterflies but also informs us that he has “sadly passed away” recently. I can’t help but wonder if Nightjar is at all aware of his currently deceased status. Somebody had better tell him if he isn’t. Any volunteers? Don’t you hate it when people who are on the verge of ranting announce they will make more than one point, start with “A” but never actually get to “B”? Also on the subject of the Grand One, he has kindly supplied me with the last line of The Bard’s sonnet to an unknown 15th century youth as proof positive that Shakey Boy was a “raving poof”:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
And so I pray to penetrate thy winking date

I’m now going to “open” this to public debate. Write in and let me and my “massive” readership know your thoughts on the matter. Did or did not Nightjar make up this last line in an attempt to publically “smear” the playwright and poet’s reputation? Personally I think he (Night Jar, not Shakespeare) is completely innocent and we should not speak ill of the recently dead. Give it five or so centuries.

He’s a bard act to follow (har).

That’s enough bloody nonsense for two weeks let alone one.

On on

J.B.