LSW 1593 – Ma On Shan with N2TH3

 

Hare - Gunpowder Plod

Well, at least Sweaty managed to restore my faith in Scottish culture. I've recently finished reading Scottish writer Irvine Welsh's "The Secret Lives of the Master Chefs" and found myself sitting next to Scotsman Thermal Dick last week. I asked him if he'd read any of Welsh's books and he claimed never to have heard of him. In fact, TD claimed he never read anything because he spent so much of his time reading work-related emails, the last thing he wanted to do in his down time was read some more. I had therefore assumed all Scots were Philistines until Sweaty assured me he not only knew about Welsh but had read some of his work, including Trainspotting - his best known book - which was his favourite. For those unfamiliar with Welsh, his books are filled with sick and twisted characters and even sicker and more twisted plots, all liberally laced with his distinctive brand of black humour. Reading his stuff, you can't help wondering where he gets the inspiration for his writing.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It soon became clear that run 1593 was the LSW hash you have when you're not having an LSW hash. It was a joint run with the Northern New Territoreans and our hare Gunpowder Plod had set the thing in an obscure area out past Ma On Shan. This was good for Sai Kung inhabitants but not so good for nearly everyone else. I took the opportunity to drive across, picking up fellow Sai Kungee Bobbledick on the way.

Despite hashing in Hong Kong for nearly 270 years, Bobbledick insisted that the start was near the KCR terminus. I opined that it was in the carpark opposite the restaurants on the way through. Sure enough I drove into the carpark to see a good number of hashers already gathered there. Bob looked somewhat abashed and it turned out he'd given Motormouth directions to the wrong place.

Any notion that this was an LSW hash disappeared as we approached the group of about 20 to see nary a familiar face. We then laid eyes on the Parkies who'd courageously made the trip all the way from Disco Bay. LSW'ers began to trickle in with another DB'er Priscilla among them. It was noted that Priscilla only seems to attend hashes that are at the far flung corners of the new territories, leading to speculation that maybe he's got some sort of Stephen King-style plot afoot and is actually reccy'ing the mainland border with a view to launching some sort of human trafficking operation.

Meanwhile Wanchai Wanker took hold of Rocky's horn and began blowing it, much to the latter's consternation because he'd naturally planned to blow his own horn and now had to deal with Wanker's saliva all over it.

It didn't go unnoticed that Plod was setting his second LSW hash in 3 weeks and I'm sure he won't mind me revealing to LSW hashers that his prostate is shot and, given his reduced capacities in the boudoir, he's found that re-directing the energies he'd otherwise employ there into a relentless regime of reccy'ing and hash setting is proving very beneficial.

Given the joint nature of the hash, Plod decided to employ Sai Kung hash markings further detracting from the sense of it being an LSW event. Furthermore, rather than the genteel demeanour exhibited at LSW hashes, the NNT hashers were an unruly mob by comparison, interjecting at every opportunity, making it difficult for Plod, using his best police commander voice, to make his pre-run instructions heard.

I attempted to enquire how long the run would be as I like to work my way into a hash, starting out at a crawl, working my way up to a dawdle before finishing strongly at an amble. Not having an idea of the run's length can lead to moving through these stages too quickly I've found, occasionally necessitating finishing in an ambulance, which can be a little embarrassing.

I finally managed to make myself heard over the din and Plod advised the Rambos should take about an hour. With that we set off on what was to prove a highly technical course through various local villages and a bit of off-road terrain.

Plod tells me the start and finish were at Sai O Carpark/Bus Terminal, Sai Sha Road then via seafront towards Wu Kai Sha, cross Sai Sha Road, through Cheung Muk Tau village, behind Villa Rhapsody!, pumping station!!, shiggy behind Sai O & Kwun Hang villages, shiggy near Ma On Shan treatment works!!!, cross Sai Sha Road into Che Ha village and woods towards sea, track to Ngai Chung village and via seafront to finish.

In the meantime, a few more LSW hashers turned up late, including Sweaty Snail Gobbler, Indy, Tight Lips and Hickey Slut, having been unable to find a taxi at the KCR station.

The pack ran about aimlessly at the first check back near the sea front and, as we eventually made our way uphill to Wu Kai Sha, I could hear a distinctive rattling sound behind me. Sure enough it was Sweaty still digesting his pre-run med's. He apparently had a tickle in his throat so had ingested a cocktail of Echinacea, St John's Wort, antibiotics and like medications to ward off more serious symptoms. He passed me like I was a still-life painting and disappeared up the hill.

I caught up with the pack as they searched fruitlessly for any sign of markings at an open check when Motormouth appeared out of nowhere, having become hopelessly lost courtesy the directions of Bobbledick. For the first time in my hash life I think, I found the on on and triumphantly called to my fellow hashers. As we made our way past, Motormouth took on a regal bearing and gave us all a royal wave and urged us on as we proceeded to a footbridge over Sai Sha road.

I found myself running with a group of NNT hashers and we spent the next half hour or so milling around various villages, and losing our way several times trying to negotiate Plod's devilish checks. We ended up crossing Sai Sha road again and heading back in the general direction of the start. I therefore lifted my rating to a healthy amble as we moved through a village and then hit some open ground where we bumped into Sweaty who'd fallen victim to another of Plod's monster check backs. I could see from the fear and confusion in his eyes that his med's had kicked in. "Ah dinnae ken tha wey!" he shouted as he shot past, with a pack of NNT'ers nipping at his heels like hyenas after a hapless wildebeest. Feeling a keen sense of hash loyalty, I broke into a full blown waddle in an effort to keep up and help Sweaty if I could. But to no avail. I could see him in the distance at another check scratching his dome before heading off into some swamp despite being able to see the lights of the restaurants opposite the start above the nearby trees. By the time I got there, he'd gone so I made my way toward the lights and sure enough an on on wasn't far away.

In keeping with the somewhat quaint tradition of veteran hashers, Rocky was stationed at the entry to the carpark for some reason, giving us a friendly wave as we made our way to the finish.

The circle was convened before the on on and was a highly raucous and undisciplined affair. Indy, representing the LSW hash, did a sterling job in the face of incessant ranting and raving. It came out during the circle that there's apparently some bad blood between the two hashes and an unsavoury incident involving Bobbledick hardly served to resolve the issue. He consumed a down down and then, in a somewhat churlish gesture, flung his pewter mug back at the drink bitch. She failed to catch it and it landed on her foot, causing her to limp away in obvious pain. Showing no sign of concern, Bobbledick took his place back in the crowd.

It turned out the poor drinks bitch was Rocky's partner. As he consoled her later, I enquired why he hadn't done more to defend his woman's honour. He said he had a very good reason. He was afraid. Despite a strength advantage - Rocky works with his hands (mainly on women's breasts he tells me) - he probably correctly concluded that Bobbledick would be an old school fighter, using his height and reach to advantage, with rapier-like jabs backed up with wicked right crosses. Unsure of his ability to combat this John L Sullivan style, Rocky judiciously elected to avoid a direct confrontation with the feisty Bobbledick. He also gave the on on a miss I think because he was full from all the cheese he'd eaten, mouse-like, after the circle.

During the circle Plod asked for a show of hands from runners planning to attend the on on and it was like being at an amputees convention. Of the 30 or so there, a paltry 7 ended up at the on on. (This was still more than Sweaty's infamous typhoon hash but, as he accurately pointed out, he had a 100% attendance rate of the hashers actually there on the night).

I walked across to the on on with Motormouth who was in a high state of dudgeon in anticipation of the upcoming Battle of Hastings memorial hash. From what I could gather, she was planning a panto and was using her contacts with the royal family to recruit the recently knighted Sir Loin of Beefy Botham to play Harold. She insisted that all the men were to dress as pages and she would be coming with an arrow in her eye. Then we got to the on on where we were separated but this didn't appear to deter her from continuing her account of this meticulously planned event.

I was seated between Indy and Sweaty who had made it to the finish but was clearly struggling with his latest prescribed med's crisis. Indy told me her 47km event on the weekend had gone well. In fact, the run was a doddle. It was the pre-run and post-run celebrations that had really taken their toll and she was suffering accordingly, which is why she, along with Tight Lips, failed to even make an appearance during the course of the hash.

As she blew another cloud of smoke over me, I asked if she knew tobacco was highly carcinogenic and that it's been scientifically proven that even passive smokers have developed cancers from indirectly breathing in cigarette smoke. I went on to suggest I was hoping to live long enough to see my children grow up if she wouldn't mind directing her exhalations elsewhere. She mumbled something in reply as she drained another beer that sounded a bit like, "Shut the fuck up."

Hashers wondering about Indy's legendary endurance will be interested to learn that a recent blood test revealed that, with the volume of alcohol and foreign substances washing around in her system, her blood now shares many of the same qualities as formaldehyde. Thus, in effect, Indy is a kind of quasi-corpse, which is why she can perform at such a high level because she is unable to feel pain, stress or fatigue.

On the downside, this corpse-like quality may also be at the root (all Aussie puns intended) of her recent boyfriend problems, particularly in intimate situations. Speaking of which, she produced her mobile phone at one point and asked us to interpret a text message from her male friend, which read something like "There's a lot of love in the world that just got lost. X". With the writings of Welsh in mind, I pondered whether, unable to warm to necrophilia, her man friend is opting for some sort of text love, with him doing the work of both on the other end. Understandably, I had to quickly dismiss this thought from my mind. Indy, already doing a leaning tower of Pisa impersonation, ordered another drink.

Anyhow, talk of Irvine Welsh led to the only NNT'er at the on on, Boracay Baby urging anyone with kids to watch Trainspotting to see what the drug scene is about and how to deal with it. This created a somewhat sombre mood, causing us all to drink more heavily, and Indy even more so when I asked BB whether the film also addressed the evils of smoking.

I noticed Sweaty wasn't eating and realized this was because he couldn't. So - in a scene reminiscent of the old film Midnight Cowboy when Jon Voight's character takes the moribund Ratso in his arms on the bus at the end of the picture - I put my arm around Sweaty and began spoon feeding him. He was unable to talk but I could see the look of gratitude in his little Scottish eyes.

Then the bill came. On top of the $50 hash cash fee, which saw LSW'ers chug-a-lugging anything they could get their hands on, including some of the camel's piss the NNT'ers call beer, we had to pay a further $150. This caused noted skinflint Bobbledick to swoon. Fortunately Boracay Baby appeared to know CPR and he quickly administered the breath of life to Bobbledick's limp form. This continued for an uncomfortably long time, with Bobbledick showing no signs of resuscitation. So as I spooned some more chicken curry into Sweaty's mouth, I looked around the table and there was Plod poring over his maps, Boracay Baby with his tongue down Bobbledick's throat, Motormouth, cutlery in hand, conducting a one woman re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings, and Indy, now under the table, wallowing in a pool of her own vomit and trying to text the words "I love you" on a piece of garlic bread she thought was her mobile phone. And then the thought occurred to me.

Is Irvine Welsh a hasher?

Piss Perfect

LSW DD's by Indy….. (Ed Note….cannot possibly follow PP's brilliant penmanship, so do not expect to be further entertained!…) ……Also apologies! Did not scribe N2TH3's…. Gunpowder Plod…..Says he, 3 weeks before to the LSW hareraiser 'Why not have a joint hash with N2TH3 on the 10/10 run as I am setting it!'…. then duly forgot that he had said it!

GP……..Having been reminded that he had suggested this joint run between N2TH3 and LSW, said……'You are welcome as long as you don't f*** up my markings…….?'…..hmm….Yes 'Plod'!

GP……well done on finally bringing the 'Montagues' and 'Capulets' together….. (poetic licence here….!)

Eunuch…….Indy rings him on Sunday to deliver the good news that LSW would finally be joining N2TH3 on a joint run…..and he refuses to answer the phone cause he already figured it would be bad news…….

Hicky Slut…….complains the whole way to the hash on the KCR about the distance that had to be travelled to get to Wu Kai Sha, before she was reminded that she was one of the integral forces that was getting us together …..with her desire for a joint run with her old hash pals …

Piscilla……never seen on hashes any more …..used to be regular attender of LSW and now Com member of WH3….never seen on either unless it's in the outer most unreachable areas of HKSAR…….(motivation already explained above by PP……!)

Wanchai Wanker…..yep the old charge again…..refuses to put his name down to set a run for LSW, but can find time to get to outer unreachable areas of HKSAR and talk about going to the ON ON.….(usually rushing away after the LSW run with the excuse…..gotta study!)

Tightlips….would have stayed away cause of distance….except guilt descended with memories of the other joint hash between these 2 rival hashes, supposedly organised by herself and Eunuch over office coffee…. that never happened…..

Bobbledick…..hasn't been around for a while….finally worked out why….he has been building his own town in that area, named Whitehead, and rarely strays away from there….

Hicky Slut……not staying for the ON ON as must get home…..Dr Evil has been away for a day in Japan…….so ????

Hicky Slut……DD by N2TH3 (remember this one….)……wearing a skirt? Unheard of esp as 12 inches too long!

WW….incontinence…. his bladder burst in 711!

PP……LSW loyalty….lives in Sai Kung close to where this unruly N2TH3 mob run but prefers to run with the more genteel hash!

Boracay Baby……unsociable type….running in on the other side of the road as Hallo Sweetie, Tightlips and myself were still going out …..and refused to acknowledge us even with an 'On On'……

That's all my notes….apologies again for not scribing the other DD's….

Indy