Here is a map showing locations of some of the WLH runs during 2016.  Clicking on a run location will allow you to view the trail for that run.

Hopefully this will be helpful if you are a hare trying to decide where to set your next trail.

With a pub chosen near Central London, a reliable hare – Naughty Nympho – and a bevy of eager hashers, run no.1464 had all the ingredients for a great nights hashing.  What could possibly go wrong?  The usual suspects met up in the Carpenter’s Arms in the depths of Edgeware Rd, a short, if somewhat elusive, P trail from Marble Arch tube.  The venue appeared ideal, 3 plus real ales to choose from, a secure room for our bags and boots and attractive décor in the form of olde worlde carpenter’s tools from pre-war (the Crimean I think).  The GM announced the hash in usual style, welcoming visitors – LipsDick from Oregon, Randall and Scott (both pilots, not a 1970’s crime-fighting duo)and one more who’s name eludes me..  The night was dark, the winds a blowin’ and the threat of rain lay heavy in the skies.  But the hashers enthusiasm is not easily dampened and an eager pack strode boldly into the night.

As close as we were to the illustrious delights of Hyde Park, the more experienced hashers of the group (of whom there were many) made several attempts to pre-guess the hare by heading where they thought the run would go, but to no avail, we were looped hither and yon, taken down some dark alleys – not for the first time for some – and positively teased with the expectation of fresh air and countryside, only to have it replaced by some rather poky areas around Paddington/Bayswater Rd.  But, finally, our patience was rewarded.  After some rather crafty, and completely out of character, short-cutting by Wacca, with KMA being led astray, we were bordering greenery!

With Knickers leading the way now, we ran head-long into the utter blackness of the park, incapable of seeing any flour or chalk of any kind until Bhopal came to our rescue with his head-torch.  As everyone was checking, the split-up began in earnest.  The trail was eventually located and we On-On’ ed for all of a minute before, disaster, the trail ran into a rail.  Indeed, the hare had neglected to check the closing times of certain, somewhat residential, areas and our trail was locked off!  But again, showing that never-say-die spirit so prevalent at WLH, Stay Over immediately announced ‘Live trail!’  and sprinted off into the darkness.   And what a fortuitous route he took.  Within 5 minutes of blindly running the moors of west London, we found ourselves on trail again, what luck!

So, with a dash past the Serpentine followed by a long on-in down Park Lane, we finally circled in on our point of origin – the Carpenter’s Arms.  No drink stop, one false trail, not too many check points and some fine, albeit dark, scenery, all in all a good trail was the general consensus.  Now, to the beer.

It is here our light-hearted tale of jolly hashers, running, drinking and making merry takes a woeful turn down some dark alleys (again).  Beer One – never found the name, had one pint, which took 3 mins to settle and was then promptly told it had run out. Oh dear.  Beer Two – served to Stay Over and distinctly tasting of soap, was also pulled. Oh deary dear.  Beer Three – Shipyard was it’s name, looked lovely, pulled two pints and was told by the increasingly grumpy bar staff -”’s’all gone mate”. Which left us with a stout – something Knight – was dark, bittery and not at all a quaffable ale, but we soldiered on.  Our patience was eventually rewarded when the Shipyard was put back on a little later.  But the on-down beer was the stout.  Oh well.

Wacca nobly accepted the duties of RA and presided over a boisterous crowd.  The Hare received no less than three down-downs, of a fruit-based beverage no less (is coconut a fruit?  turns out, it is);  our visitors were applauded and abused –with one attempt made to name Randall, our US pilot, as Cockpit, no Joystick I believe, though I’m unsure if any result was arrived at.  Fickle Fart was rewarded for the longest journey from Birmingham to London by public transport – nearly 4hrs apparently; Next Week for excessively keen exercising and All Fours was roundly applauded for achieving her 50^th WL hash and received the priceless tankard in recognition of time served. 

Social drinking ensued for many afterwards.  Eric, it was said, had slunk off to the nearby Wetherspoons, only to return to us later in the evening.   Drinking continued, much hilarity was had by all and eventually, when time and alcohol had taken their toll, we called it a night and headed home.

On On! KMA

Note to self: in future, make sure you do not find yourself loitering around a checkpoint in the company of Dingo and the Pope, when scribe duties are still to be handed out. Better to head off and pretend to be breaking the check than to stick around and get dumped on. Anyway, I digress. By the time this incident occurred I, and much of the rest of the pack, were recovering from the life-threating experience of crossing the North Circular in full late-rush-hour spate. But more on that later. The run started with the customary welcome to visitors, returnees, etc, which included hashers from Texas and Australia (who was, I believe, considering joining WLH permanently). Birthday boy for the day was Kiss My Ass, who was duly issued with the birthday cake hat and the bare ass pants. The spare set of ass pants were allocated to All Fours, for no particular reason that I could discern, although this did give rise to certain ungentlemanly activity later in the run. Then it was time to head On On into the wilds of Ealing Our hares for the evening, Ryde and TableWhine, had felt it necessary for us to experience some of the newly reclaimed scenic woodland pathways adjacent to the Brentham Estate, and this necessitated the perilous North Circular Road crossing. Having just returned from a few days working in Bangkok, a city not renowned for its courteous driving, I was fortunate enough to have picked up a few road crossing survival techniques. The best tip, in my view, is to wait for some local to attempt the crossing first, then follow closely behind, but keeping a good 10m or so downstream. That way, the cars hit the other guy first, which slows them down a bit. Anyway, this technique worked OK for me, and I got to the other side largely unscathed, and then just kept on running to drown out the sound of car horns and the dull thud of metal against flesh. It was only later, as we were running along the A40 that I saw the fleet of ambulances, presumably heading to the scene of carnage on the North Circular. But I guess the attrition rate was not that excessive, since there seemed to be more people at the circle than there were at the start. And so we progressed along some of the more obscure back alleys of North Ealing, encountering more checks than a bad game of chess, and more false trails than an Agatha Christie novel. Sometimes, we were even running along the intended trail set by the hares, although this is more likely to have been the result of luck rather than judgment as many hashers had omitted to bring along a torch. (Apparently instructions should have gone out to remind hashers to come suitably equipped, but this had somehow failed to be passed on). To give the hares credit where it is due, they did manage to make good use of the limited bits of greenery available in this otherwise rather suburban environment. On several occasions throughout the run, Optimist was observed flashing at people in various dark alleyways. If he has not been reported to the Police for this behaviour, then hopefully we may see some entertaining photos on the site shortly. Arriving back in the Haven Arms after, I thought, having been among the front 2 or 3 FRBs towards the latter part of the run, I was not entirely surprised to see several fellow hashers sitting at the bar already half way through their first pint! They (no names to protect the guilty) had obviously got the practice of short-cutting down to a fine art. And then on to the circle, with our RA for the evening, Butt Plug, awarding down downs to all the usual suspects including the hares, visitors, etc. A special penalty was awarded to Bhopal, Stayover, and Kiss My Ass for molesting All Fours en-route. (I did not witness the event in question, but apparently it involved some sort of interaction with her bare ass pants.) Her revenge was to give them a good whacking on their bare ass pants with a wooden plank. I felt that Bhopal was probably enjoying the experience a bit too much as he asked for more, whereas Stayover had clearly experienced repeated corporal punishment in his schooldays and was quick to slide additional bum protection into his pants before he received his whacking. I’m sure they have all learned their lesson, but don’t ask me what.

On On New Balls (Please)

Another warm night in our ongoing Indian summer and the expectant crowd of hashers were waiting for the pre-run address from the GM; it was a few minutes before I realised Dingo had started as I was waiting for her to stand up.

Anyway, there I was at the back being my normal inconspicuous self, when I was nominated run scribe due to some crazy story about my refusal to wear a bra. Antipodeans are obviously a few years behind the times and have not yet realised that the equality issue has moved on from gender to personal freedoms – my preference to wear knickers was completely ignored.

The hare Bhopal gave the usual run signage details for the benefit of visitors and we were off. We could tell the run had started by the fact that within one minute Pope, PF and Mad Cow were deep in conversation being overtaken by More On.

At the first check, I asked Butt Plug whether he enjoyed the roller disco, he replied that it was a great night apart from the roller skating; I thought this could be a good opener for the down-downs until finding out that he was RA for the night. And to be honest that’s about all of note that I can remember of the run until we arrived at the beer stop. I was thinking what a good idea this was until the gang planks leading to Bhopal’s barge got a bit tricky in the dark and my thoughts turned to what a brave fellow he is to manage them after every hash. I spent a few minutes speculating, whilst enjoying the rum and coke, how long Pope would last if he lived on a boat as he breaks a foot running in the park.

Talking nautical reminds me of my son’s first joke which at the time I thought was pretty good for a seven year old – ‘Why are pirates called pirates? Because they just arrrrr!’

That said, the run was pretty good, with the more erudite amongst us – some would say obsessive anorak types (Wacker), referring to a figure of eight run pattern with Hammersmith bridge as the fulcrum. I wouldn’t know about such things but remembered that when we crossed the bridge for a second time another antipodean hasher called on-on in the direction of the original out trail.

Which brings me to the down-downs which, quite frankly, are a bit of an issue from my point of view. Hashers will remember that they were held in a small room which could not hold all the attendees. Whilst this is to be expected from mismanagement, it resulted in the scribe not hearing a thing. But I had a cunning plan – I would ask the RA for a set of his notes to crib from after. Little did I expect a crumpled up Christmas menu with the spidery scribblings of a madmen all around the edge and in between such delights as ‘bacon wrapped cumberland sausages’ and ‘spicy coated king prawns’.  Suffice to say the only names and associated misdemeanours I can decipher are (in no particular order): Optimist lining up for a ride behind All Fours at the roller disco, Table Whine being first to the drink stop, PF guilty of eating alone, Pope being propositioned by Eric (again), Dingo walking backwards into cars, visitor Crengi’s nude deli (?!), How Long being a fitness freak and attacking a pizza man and finally Muff Diver (so that’s his name), going across the bridge the wrong way round, upside down.

In my alcohol induced happiness towards the end of the night I took down Plug’s email address (in between ‘beer battered onion rings’ and ‘chocolate brownies’), thinking I would contact him to fill in the missing gaps but fortunately in the morning common sense prevailed and I returned to my usual indifference.

On On, Roadkill