Sunday, June 30, 2013

GOD fails to impress

What possibly could have gone wrong? I dunno but the Hatyai rabble seemed distinctly less than impressed with their return to the Gorge of Death. Maybe I should have billed it as the Gash of Delight? Egghead has promised a rehash so no doubt he'll tell us.

Anyhow for the record: about 8.2km including some generous false trails and one checkback. Total ascent of 400m. It took 2:40 to set and 1:40 to run, which is not a very good ratio. My only consolation was Safe Sex saying, yes, she could see the paper and that it was a "really good" run. Bless you my child, you have truly encountered GOD.


Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Rong and Shot of it

Saturday's SH3 run details below:

....or for those who prefer their directions in words:
From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4.7k and turn left for 6k then left for 1.5k and right for 500 meters to the run site at Sala Hin Kiang. Kick off is 4:30 as usual.

There's also a map below for Sunday's HH3 run which we are told will be followed by a birthday party although whose it is remains a mystery.


Wednesday, June 26, 2013

No news is no news

An artist's impression of the Irish Pub, but not neccessarily the one in Hatyai!
Gaseous Clay has taken over the responsibility of setting this week's SH3 run, as the pussies had some problems. So far there is no news of the whereabouts of the run site but that will be posted separately later.
In the meantime, tomorrow night, (Thursday June 27th) there will be a Hash-night-out at the Irish Pub in Hatyai starting a about 6:30/7:00 p.m.to which all are invited. The location of the Irish pub is a closely guarded secret known only to those who have managed to find it before. The best we can do is to give the Irish version of the directions: From the traffic lights at the Odean Department Store on Nipatuthit Road 3, go left as if you were going to the Pink Lady, but then don't go there. Instead go in the opposite direction at the next set of traffic lights where you would go left if you were going to the Pink Lady (which you're not) along Sanehanusorn Road, between the two BP Grand hotels (Towers on the left, Suite on the right) and look for the Irish Pub on the left after another 2 or 3 hundred meters.
Then on Friday night, there will be a quiz night at the Office Bar - the first in at least a couple of years -  when the Hash team of which YOU are a valuable and essential part will take on all-comers in an attempt to uphold the fine record of usually coming second because we drink too much to remember any of the answers in the last round. In accordance with tradition the fun will start at 8:00 p.m and there is a BBQ included in the usual price of B100 per person the proceeds of which will as usual be donated to Songkhla Orphanage.
Finally as pressaged below, Beavershot in the guise of his mild-mannered alter-ego, Sex Focus will be setting the HH3 run on Sunday from a similar run site to that from which the run was held on 9th June (see below for map). Directions from Songkhla are: From the Ko Yo intersection, take the old Hatyai Road for 4.7k and turn left for 8k then turn right at Wat Keow Kloy for about 7k, then left along Ban Nai Rai Road for about 3.5k and turn left for about 500 meters along the new road to the run site.

Girl trouble

Not quite on vacation . . . while Brainiac has apparently accepted Egghead's abject apology over that Wikipedia snub, it appears he's engaged in an important mission right now. And, as so often when the future of all mankind is at stake, his problems are being compounded by troubles with a woman. Let that be a lesson to you, Earthlings!


Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Soi Cowboy will have to wait (and so will last Saturday's write up)

Brainiac's on holiday so Soi Cowboy and the lost weekend are on ice.
Instead the Brain-e-hack research organisation brings you some answers to the burning questions which proved so divisive last Saturday.
First up, the test of what constitutes a language and a dialect, assuming that one doesn't subscribe to the army (and navy) posession theory which was actually posited by linguist Max Weinrich in respect of Yiddish, is generally judged by mutual (un)intelligability. (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09296170701794278#.UcmuB9JASS8 if you have $37 to spare or Wikipedia if you don't!) By that standard the number of currently extant languages is variously estimated as something between 6,700 and 7,000. But this includes such oddities as Flemish which most non-political linguists would say was Dutch by another name and Slovak and Czech which both fail and pass the intelligability test depending one where it is run.
But there is not much dispute that the country with the greatest concentration of languages which are mutually unintelligable is Papua New Guinea where the figure is well over 800 distinct languages (http://www.ethnologue.com/country/PG/default/***EDITION***) most of which are spoken by populations of no more than a few thousand who have become separated from each other in the central highlands. So the figure of 900 bandied about on Saturday is to all intents and purposes correct.
However, the estimate of 700 aboriginal languages in Australia is a wild over-statement, at least these days, although it is estimated that at the time of the arrival of Captain Cook in 1770 there may have been as many as 400 distinct languages. Today however, the figure is about 30, with another 175 or so still understood by a few people but in the process of dying out (http://www.ethnologue.com/country/AU/default/***EDITION***).
The other figure touted on Saturday, that a quarter of the world's languages are spoken in either Australia or New Guinea is also highly debatable at best, flat wrong at worst. The estimate seems to come from a lumping together of Austronesian and Papuan languages which many liguists would argue with, and anyway, the term Austronesian has got nothing to do with Australia, and the aboriginal languages are not generally thought to be related to the Austronesian language family, of which the largest member is Malay. References for that one on request but too numerous to publish here.
So, back to beer, depravity and lust....


Prepare to meet thy GOD

The Gorge of Death, hereinafter known as "GOD".
Click to see it in all its fearsome majesty.
Well this coming Sunday's run was going to be a gentle Punnakan-ish outing but the HH3 Powers That Be (much like the SH3 Cronies, except younger) have decreed that it will be set from the same site as the run week before last ... yes, site of last year's infamous Gorge of Death run. And so unless the long-run hare (me) loses his nerve in the meantime, prepare once again to come face to face with thy GOD. Provided you survive that, there promises to be large amounts of free beer in celebration of no less than three hash birthdays. And for Mii the Dog and anyone else not man enough for the big one, veteran HH3 hare Sex Star will set a short run that could be pretty challenging in itself. Be there!

Monday, June 24, 2013

A vertical Sunday

Perhaps not everyone fully appreciated Robocop's two-dimensional (i.e., up and down) run yesterday, but we all enjoyed the brilliantly scenic site deep in the hills between the Old and New Hatyai Roads. The turnout was big and the circle spirited even by Sunday standards. A few quick pix ....










P.S. Further to Saturday evening's tired and emotional discussion about language, yesterday Soft[REMAINDER OF NAME REDACTED] asked me the difference between a language and a dialect. I couldn't remember any linguistic definition but I suggested it was probably largely a political distinction. So I just checked and that seems to be about the size of it -- or as one linguist once put it, "A language is a dialect with an army."

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Don't mess with Randolph Quirk

Between the three hashers with linguistic degrees present yesterday it didn't take Brainiac* to refute the assertion by [NAME REDACTED] that the Aboriginal languages are "simple" or "primitive". But for the record, here is the definitive word on the subject from the renowned British linguist Randolph Quirk in his book The Use of English:

'Primitive' is a word that is often used ill-advisedly in discussions of language. Many people think that 'primitive' is indeed a term to be applied to languages, though only to some languages, and not usually to the language they themselves speak. They might agree in calling 'primitive' those uses of language that concern greetings, grumbles and commands, but they would probably insist that these were especially common in the so-called 'primitive languages'. These are misconceptions that we must quickly clear from our minds. 

So far as we can tell, all human languages are equally complete and perfect as instruments of communication: that is, every language appears to be as well equipped as any other to say the things its speakers want to say. It may or may not be appropriate to talk about primitive peoples or cultures, but that is another matter. Certainly, not all groups of people are equally competent in nuclear physics or psychology or the cultivation of rice or the engraving of Benares brass. But this is not the fault of their language. The Eskimos can speak about snow with a great deal more precision and subtlety than we can in English, but this is not because the Eskimo language (one of those sometimes miscalled 'primitive') is inherently more precise and subtle than English. This example does not bring to light a defect in English, a show of unexpected 'primitiveness'. The position is simply and obviously that the Eskimos and the English live in different environments. The English language would be just as rich in terms for different kinds of snow, presumably, if the environments in which English was habitually used made such distinction important.

Similarly, we have no reason to doubt that the Eskimo language could be as precise and subtle on the subject of motor manufacture or cricket if these topics formed part of the Eskimos' life. For obvious historical reasons, Englishmen in the nineteenth century could not talk about motorcars with the minute discrimination which is possible today: cars were not a part of their culture. But they had a host of terms for horse-drawn vehicles which send us, puzzled, to a historical dictionary when we are reading Scott or Dickens. How many of us could distinguish between a chaise, a landau, a victoria, a brougham, a coupe, a gig, a diligence, a whisky, a calash, a tilbury, a carriole, a phaeton, and a clarence ?

The discussion of 'primitiveness', incidentally, provides us with a good reason for sharply and absolutely distinguishing human language from animal communication, because there is no sign of any intermediate stage between the two. Whether we examine the earliest records of any language, or the present-day language of some small tribe in a far-away place, we come no nearer to finding a stage of human language more resembling animal communication and more 'primitive' than our own.

*Who anyway seems to be on strike, still miffed by that guy who accused him of using Wikipedia. According to Brainiac, Wikipedia uses him.

Big but not quite monstrous

Egghead has been press-ganged into volunteering to write a rehash so you should be able to read all about it whenever he emerges from his Lost Weekend on Soi Cowboy. But meanwhile some stats.

The long run measured 9.8km in length including all checks. Total ascent was 620m with a highest point of 276m. It included one of the steepest hills we've done in recent years, ascending about 140m in the space of 100m. My online sine calculator makes that at 54˚. The first runner, one of the fit young new Hatyai guys, arrived back in about 1:20.

The short run and the Full Moon run (which were the same, except in opposite directions) were just short of 4km with a total ascent of 100m.

The total amount of beer drunk: incalculable.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Post midsummer madness

Hatyai Hash's run on Sunday is:
From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 10k and turn right at the Nam Noi traffic lights. Follow the road for ooooh,  quite a long way until you see a sign on the right then turn right and follow the road to the run site.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Midsummer madness!

Click to see it big



Sunday, June 16, 2013

Today's Hatyai Hash

We're not quite sure what part of the word "run" our hare Sex Star still doesn't understand, but the hour of thrashing over under sideways down through a jungle hillside began to feel better once it was over, especially once the free beer started to flow. As always at HH3, a good lively circle too, at least till the rain moved in once again, giving us the chance to do the only sprint of the day ... to our cars.









Friday, June 14, 2013

Change!

Two maps this week from the ever reliable Sex Sprinter who has invoked that nice Mr Obama to inform us that the location of Saturday's run site has been changed. Details are now:
Songkhla Hash House Harriers run #1670, Saturday 15th June 2013, 4:30 p.m.
Hares: Sex Sprinter and Buk Toy
Misdirections: From The Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4k and turn left for 5.2k then left and follow the road for about 1.2k then take the track on the left for about 500m to the run site.
From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4.6k and turn left for 8k then right for about 6k to the runsite on the right

Sunday's ever reliable HH3 run is in Poonakan near the ITV station, about 6k down from Wat Keow Kloy. Hares are the Sex people.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

The 69 Run that didn't go far enough........

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

If you get to to big tree you've gone too far....

Unless of course you are coming from Hatyai, in which case you haven't gone far enough.
The big tree is being cited again this week which along with Poonakan and the much misused old/new Yala/Hatyai roads, is one of our most popular landmarks. This week it is Yardo who is calling on its negative location (as in you don't want to be there) to reference what is claimed to be an entirely novel runsite.
Details are:
Songhla Hash House Harriers run #1669, Saturday June 8th 2013, 4:30 p.m.
Hares: Yardstick and Perky
Misdirections: From the Kao Saeng intersection take the old Yala road for 16k to Wat Kunthong (5.3k past the An Thong intersection of the old and new Yala roads) and turn right for 1.1k, then left for about 400 meters to the runsite (those coming from Hatyai, should pass the big tree going towards Wat Kunthong and go 2.4k then turn right.)
Early notice this week of the whereabouts of Hatyai H3 on Sunday (June 9th), even if the identity of the 3 handsome male hares is being kept a closely guarded secret. Map below, including creditable directions give or take a preposition or two (and whose counting?)
See you there!


Is barefoot really better?

This is what the barefoot running people want you to think. But is it true?
Turns out, probably not for most people. A number of new studies show that runners actually expend less engery when wearing shoes and landing mainly on their heels rather than the balls of their feet. Read the story here.