Yaaaaawn.....

Damned by faint praise, this afternoons' numberless HH3 run will go down as another ok sort of run with some complaints from the short runners about the heights to which they were obliged to go, and from the long runners (again!) about how following Sex Printer is not neccessarily the right policy. He timed the long run at 1hr. 18min. but was probably about 3 minutes behind the first runners in on both the long and short runs. The long run was 6.1k and went up to 284m; the short run was 3.5k and went up to about 178m although the first half was pretty brutal by all accounts. A great circle followed marred only by the GM's sense of humor failure over the naming of Sex of the Man II/Sexof the Mouse. In any event he deserves two T shirts for having stoically put up with Moo Sahb's increasingly temperamental attitude towards the world in general and co-hares in particular, and set a pretty... ok sort of run (aw c'mon, it was brilliant!)

Low downs and high ups

Here is the low down on today's run; well actally it's a high up really as a low down would look a bit more like the view we had from the 4th 360; a bit like this...

From this angle it all looked a bit unfamiliar, but in fact, the hills away to the left (South East) of are those that we access either from the Eastern side of Sai Kao Village or from the quarry behind Rong Rien Tan Kwai which is just out of shot on the left hand edge of the picture, the same hills we were running on 2 weeks ago (see run 1674 below). Over on the right is the main Hatyai - Jana Highway with its intersection with the old Yala road more or less in the center background.
But there's a lot of country back there....
For the record, todays three runs, tweaked to remove the effects of the checks were: short - 3.6k, max. elevation 158m; medium - 4.4k, max. elev. 174m, and long - 6.6k, max elev. 264m, total ascent 325k. The first runners in on the long run took about 1hr. 15mins. The last runners in from both the long and the short runs took about 1hr. 40 mins.

From the land of the beaver

Beavers aren't the only creatures from Canada that deserve your respect and caution . . . .

Is it that time already?

Incredible! It seems like only yesterday that we were comparing wounds and hangovers and here comes the weekend again for more of the same!
Starting tonight (Thursday, 7:00 p.m.), there's a pre-weekend warm up (for the food and beer, not the running) at the Kuah Ban Yah restaurant, next to the Post Office at the Hai Yek Ko Yo. Then tomorrow night (Friday) the victorious cronies will be reforming to fight off all challengers at the quiz night which is at the Office Bar starting at 8:00 p.m. The quiz master is Stick Insect so it ought to be a done-deal... except that he hasn't actually given us the questions yet (hint! hint!).

Saturday's run as shown above is up at Pijit; details are:
Songkhla Hash House Harrier's run # 1676, Saturday July 27th 2013, 4:30 p.m.
Hare: Egghead with canine assistance.
Misdirections: From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4.7k and turn left for 10.3k (actually, 2.3k past Wat Keow Kloy) then turn left and follow the road round to the left after 250m and keep on the road following signs or paper for another 2k to the run site.
Three runs are promised, all of which will try to live up to Beavershot's billing for run 1674!
Sunday's HH3 map still can't quite get the hare's name as he would like it to be, but efforts are being made to make sure that the T shirt will get it right.

In case you are having trouble following the Hatyai-oriented map the details are:
From the Kao Saeng intersection take the old Yala road for 8k and turn right before Ban Dan school then follow the road for about 2.5k to the B site. The run will be an A-B so make sure you are there in time to get on the transport to the A site which will leave sharp at ...... 4:30ish.

Separated at birth?

Royal congratulations

Bad news for Short Screw

Early warning of the location of this week's upcoming HH3 run reveals the awful truth about the contraversial naming on Sunday, with the name written down by the GM being Sex of the Monkey. Never mind Dave, you can get it changed by donating a case of beer.
But we'll be ready next time!

The Full Moon Hash 100th run weekend: a selective account.

Three runs from the weekend just past in one shot. Saturday's  long run (4.3k) in red, narrowly avoiding being taken over by the short run  (2.9k) in green, with the long run requiring considerable massaging to do so. But all credit to the short run hares for not letting anything so minor as the long run get in the way of their intentions!

In the event, the short run took considerably longer than the long run to complete, probably because the "games" (about which nothing further has been heard and as far as is known for which no prizes were awarded) had the effect of slowing everyone down, whereas the body-part-search on the long run (which did at least produce some scores and possibly some prizes) had the opposite effect with the first runners in in not much more than 40 minutes.

What followed was, depending on your viewpoint, a great party or carnage, as the finest traditions of the Full Moon Hash of eschewing such uncivilized practices as circles and karaoke were thrown to the wind. But rumour has it that the croneys and their lackeys upheld  HFMH's finest traditions by being the last to leave/ hit the sack at about 3:00 a.m. having drunk their way through 7 1/2 slabs of beer, a vat of red wine and a bottle of Tequila, with some assistance it must be said from the HH3 crowd who sweated it all off over a hot microphone.

Sunday's run had been advertised as a relay hare run, the first at HH3, but the notion was consigned to the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" pile when Sex Printer came to his senses and realised that the chances of anyone with half a knowledge of the area getting hold of the paper were not great, given that the HH3FRB's are not known for their acute senses of direction, and that most of them still think that a GPS is a female 4-wheel drive. Instead, Sex Printer, who had been among the last to leave at 3:00 a.m. and Sex Star whose movements went unreported, set out in the traditional way with a bag of paper and half an idea (and a GPS, it has to be said) and set what can only be described as a cracking run; 5.6k, maximum elevation 203m and total ascent 240m, it did everything a run should do even managing to turn the whole pack round on a couple of occasions and keeping most people at least in touch with the FRB's until the final in-run along the flat when we all knew where we were going anyway.

Post run, the main topic of conversation was a comparison of hang overs with Beavershot generally seeming to have had the worst of it. Short Screw got named at the circle, somehow managing to avoid being called 'short time' in Thai in favour of Sex of the Man II based on the original Sex of the Man, a name which seems to have taken on an iconic quality as the worst name ever given at HH3, and that is going some! And finally,  for those who still had not had enough of each other's company there was another opportunity to squeeze in a few more beers chez Buk Toy before ringing down the curtain on the Full Moon 100th run weekend.

Before and after

Egghead before and after the operation. You should really click on this to see the remarkable difference.

OK, so it's now just a month before our beloved GM Egghead is scheduled to go under the knife for what he claims will be a "hernia" operation. But of course we all know that it will actually be his long awaited facial makeover. Rejuvenation miracle or the sad loss of the Mr. Chips gravitas that his students know and love? You tell us!

Remember, remember the 26th December

Remember 26th December 2004?
Of course you do! It was the day of the tsunami, when following a 9.3 earthquake in the Indian Ocean a tidal wave slammed into Aceh, Sri Lanka, India and the western coasts of Thailand, Malaysia and Burma, killing as many as a quarter of a million people, making it one of the worst natural disaters on record. Not a good day.
But to its credit, it was also the day when Hatyai Full Moon Hash House Harriers sprang fully-formed into existence, and at a run site above Hatyai Park, near the big gold Buddha, more than a hundred people gathered somewhat before dark, and began a tradition which has continued almost uninterrupted for the last eight and a half years, of gathering each month on a day around the full moon and doing what hashers do best, running and drinking beer.
It's been a roller-coaster ride; the hash has gone from auspiciously dubious beginnings through hard times and internal warfare to arrive at its 100th run in better shape than it has ever been, largely because of a small group of dedicated runners who have supported it through thick and thin, and to the hard work of GM-ette Moo Sahb who has  tirelessly catered to the hash's every need for almost 5 years.
And on Sunday its grandmother, Songkhla Hash, will move slightly to one side and put on a joint run to celebrate the HFMH3 centenial run, officially numbered 99.9 in recognition of the fact that there was a run #49.5 between numbers 49 and 50 for reasons now lost in the mists of time.
The run will happen at the Sai Kao Resort and attendees are asked to be at the run site by 6:00 p.m. as those loosely answering to the description of hares will be attempting to organize some team games to happen on both the long and short runs, neither of which will be overtaxing, leaving plenty of time and energy for the party which will follow.
The catering arrangements are being masterminded by the SH3 and HH3 pussies, so expect some pyrotechnics as well as some great food. There will be copious beer (but don't let that stop you chipping in another slab or something more compact but alcoholically meaningful if you are so minded!) and we are promised some entertainment. The sensible have already booked a room at the resort which rumor has it is now full, but there is plenty of room to camp out.
Offical deatails are:
SH3 run #1675, joint run with HFMH3 run #99.9, Saturday 20th July 2013, 6:30 p.m.
Hares: Egghead, Only a Yolk, Peppered Pussy, Sex Sprinter, and from HH3, Star Soccer
Misdirections: From the Ko Yo intersection take the old Hatyai road for 4.7k and turn left for 6k, then left for 4k. The run site is on the left in the Sai Kao Resort.
The official price is 100 Baht for active HFMH3 runners and 200 or 300 Baht for others depending on whether a T-shirt is included in the price.
No news yet of HH3's run on Sunday but no doubt that will be forthcoming by Saturday.
Meanwhile, on! on! to the Basil for some Pasta-loading (see below!)

Tomorrow night at Basil

Click on this to see The Basil.

The latest of our occasional series of Thursday SH3 + HH3 dining and drinking evenings will take place tomorrow, Thursday, July 18, from around 7 pm. at The Basil. You can read the rave reviews here but don't believe their map. It's on Punnakan Soi 2, which not surprisingly is the second road on the right after you turn onto Punnakan Rd. from Route 4, the main road through Hatyai (or as you Songkhla people quaintly call it, the "Old Hatyai Road"). If you get to the back gate of the uni you've gone way too far, unless of course you've come down Punnakan from the Songkhla direction, in which case you haven't gone far enough. Anyhow, come, eat, drink, and be merry. After all, it'll be almost 48 hours till the next party.

From the blackmail archives

Just to officially welcome Short Screw back to the Songkhla fold, look what we just found . . . a snap of a younger version of him dragging or, more likely being dragged by, two willing lasses into a dark corner of The Lodge. The year was 2002.

Reset

This is an attempt to get The Online Scum working again after it was broken by a photograph of either 1) Short Screw or 2) Peppered Pussy -- our forensic team is now trying to determine which one. While we're at it, one more shot.

A few more from yesterday

The inimitable KY interrogates a new runner.

You call it animal abuse, we call it hash hospitality.

One of our new crop of disgustingly young, fit, fast Hatyai runners.

Buk Toy and Mii, canine icon of HH3.

A rogues gallery of front-running shortcutters.

Divine retribution and a good ass sniffing

I mean, does it get any better? Both from today's Robocop "Run of the Year".

Order is restored

Mii the Dog inspects the arriving Short Screw for possible food.

After several weeks of extreme/bizarre/erratic runs set by the likes of the SH3 Pussies, Robocop, Sex Star, and, er, me, it was time for something a little more normal before we had an outright mutiny on our hands. So up stepped Egghead, offering to set a run on his favorite hill. We expected good things and we got them: lovely runsite amid the rubber, a novel ascent, some classic ridge running, and plenty of gentle downhill on the way back.


Even the most reluctant long runner (that would be Gan Yao) would have to admit that the views were spectacular, thanks to some ambitious new terracing work that has cleared out several big chunks of jungle hillside. It was an old run that felt like a new run.


Contrary to what you may read elsewhere, the first runners were back in 1:10, and most everyone else within the next 10 or 15 minutes. There was a particularly long feeding and drinking session before the circle, by which time it was pitch dark and the dengue mosquitoes had given way to the malarial ones. Then onto the ice:


New runner: Softcock’s daughter Hermione, visiting from Oz. Actually I don’t think that was her name but I didn’t hear her real one announced so it will have to do. Welcome to Songkhla!

Sinners: Beavershot, for happening to be talking when the GM called the circle. As you may remember from the reign of Egghead I, depending on the phase of the moon or perhaps the tightness of his underwear, our bipolar GM tends to veer between ineffectual old fartdom and jackbooted autocracy, and today he was in the latter mode. So tell us, which Egghead do you prefer?

More sinners: Softcock, for bringing proof of his contribution to the population explosion back when he was still capable of such things. Temporary Relief, I think for talking in the circle. Only a Yolk, for never not talking. Mucky Pup, for throwing ice water on two respected senior hashers before the run. (OK, so I lied about the “respected” part.) And Short Screw, for general grandstanding, showboating, and competitive running.

Hare: Egghead. Despite his continuing and utter inability to get down and party, train dogs, raise children, manage his work life, control his wife, etc., this guy can still set a run like nobody else. He even makes it look easy, and as we’ve seen in recent weeks, it isn't. So on-on till next Saturday and our milestone SH3/Full Moon Run #99.9!

Wow! moment

Yesterday's run produced a couple of wow! moments, mostly because what had previously been narrow tracks through secondary jungle, had become wide open vistas flanked by newly cut rubber terraces. This one is looking North West towards Ko Yo with Kao Ron and Kao Lam in the middle ground and the zoo hill in the background.

1674:The facts, nothing but the facts!

6.5k without the (6, 360's. 7 F's 1 check back) checks, 7.9k with them all; total ascent 298 m, maximum height 244m. First runners in, in about 1hr.20'ish. short run hmmm... 2.5k (in black).... Beavershot, the floor is yours!

Runny egg

The GM requests the pleasure of your company at:
Songkhla Hash House Harriers run #1674. Saturday 13th July, 2013, 4:30 p.m.
Hares: Egghead with Haram, White Meat and Ma Mick for company.
Misdirections: From the Kao Saeng intersection take the old Yala road for 16k and turn right (by Wat Kun Tong). Follow the road for 3.2k and turn left for 700 meters to the run site.

Sunday's HH3 run is in Ban Phru, beyond Macro on the way to Sadao, near the autistic school. Why? Because we asked them to set it there! Hmmm... it seemed like a good idea at the time! The hares are Robocop and Sex Racing; map attached for the adventurous.

Finally, a reminder that the HFMH3 100th run will take place on the 20th July, jointly with the SH3 run that day and there will be a party to follow, with a sleep over for those who have either booked a room at Sai Kao Resort or plan on camping there to avoid driving home. The fun will start at 6:30 p.m. sharp and will feature long and short runs, both of which will involve games or some kind of team activity. The pussies are catering the party so expect loads of great food and there will also be vast quantities of beer to drink. The run fee is 100 Baht for the favored many with the irregular few paying 200 Baht, and a booking this weekend would help the catering arrangements as well as guaranteeing your T.... but that would be giving it away woudn't it!

The silent victim

In keeping with our current all-animals-all-the-time theme, waterboarding of hash dogs is by no means the only crime against animality on the hash these days. Consider this pathetic creature -- a dog so ready to run with us that it sleeps in a shoe rack. And yet its owner, who shall remain nameless but whose initials are [REDACTED], cruelly refuses to bring it to the hash. Where is the justice? Amnesty for Snowden and Freedom for the Dogs!

Reverse pussy

Proving yet again that it's not a good idea to set checks etc. at points where in trails and out trails diverge, yesterday's pussy run was done mostly in reverse as the pack found the in trail at the first F. But it didn't seem to make much difference except to the GM, who half way round the run decided he knew where it SHOULD be going and took his canine friends off in search of paper, eventully rejoining the in trail going the right way, thus avoiding the hastily repositioned mobile beer stop on what should have been the out trail. Overall distance was in the region of 7k and the maximum elevation about 100m. R2D2 set out with the GPS and a bag of paper and set a good short run (and, hey, shouldn't he get credit for being a hare?) of about half the length of the long run. A small but meaningful turnout with many regulars otherwise engaged. R2D2 will join them this week as he departs for a lengthy sojourn in Canada. Bon Voyage!

Dick Cheney approves

What could be more charming --
a pair of innocent young girls waterboarding their dogs.

Now that's a tongue

Double pussy

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

Triple Beaver

Beaver and bitches: Lucky smells a rat.

The pain is passing, the trauma lost in the mists of a runner's high, otherwise known as 8 cans of Leo. All that remains is a few scattered memories of precipitous trails, razor vines and, oh fuck, not another hill. In fairness, those memories are spread across two runs; three if you count the full moon run sandwiched between Beavershot's latest two epic runs, both of which have been quietly incubating in his testosterone addled brain for some time. I mean, what can you expect from someone who does 500 sit ups a day...A DAY! Little wonder he's so pumped up!

The first, billed as not a monster...was... well, not a monster. Ok, it had a lot of up and it was quite long, but once we got to the top and started round the hill, there was plenty of good running along clear trails, culminating in an excellent check that brought most of the front half of the pack back together. So although it was nice to get back to the run site, the experience was not painful enough to prevent most if not all from also running the excellent full moon run which followed not too long afterwards.

So two runs, 13k give or take a few hundred meters, 600 meters of ascent and two hours or so of running, down; Gorge of Death? Bring it on.

The writing was on the wall when Stick Insect decided to retire about 30 minutes into the run, long before there was even a sniff of GOD in the air, and Short Screw was noticed to be absent, later confirmed to have involuntarily opted for the short run along with the fittest of the fit young things. That left a pack of a dozen or so, which fairly swiftly split up into a leading group of half a dozen; who pulled far enough ahead of the rather more scattered remnants who by the time the highest point was reached, were just far enough behind to never quite reach a check when paper was still being looked for. Tempers became frayed as the going got tough. It was not ideal running weather and the early course of the run around some of the most unlovely country you could hope not to find, rather took the edge off the later part of the run which was, yes, I'll admit it, spectacular.

GOD was reached at length and there was a brief pause while some pictures were taken at the point where Mii the dog had refused last time round. This time he, along with the other 3 cannines took it in his stride; then after some rock-hopping down the gorge, we were out into the rubber at the bottom and in no time at all there was the run site looming up ahead - well a kilometer ahead. At this point the paper which had teetered on the brink of being parsimonious and difficult to see, paled into insignificance under the onslaught of the setting sun, and most of the pack just took a bearing on the run site and headed across country. Only Sex Sprinter it seems, had the decency to find the in-trail and follow it home, by which time most of the front part of the pack had already come in off paper in around 1 hour and 40 minutes - 20 minutes longer that it had taken the generally older and less fit pack the previous week to complete the not quite a monster, which was about a quarter as long again as the GOD run.

But that was by no means the end, and with memories of Off T's epic escape the last time GOD was negotiated, the hare had the decency to look a bit sheepish while the stragglers straggled in, just before the light and their energy failed completely. The food frenzy then followed and there was also a lot of beer, which at one stage looked as if it was about to run out before another bucket was located. In the midst of the transition from circle to birthday party, just as the card school was setting up, Off T arrived, much as he had done the last time GOD was in the air, this time happily in his own car rather than on the back of a commandeered motorcycle, clearly having no intention of risking a repeat of his last misplacement.

So all's well etc. Not a run that will score highly on the hash-heaven hall of fame or infamy scale, either as being mind-blowingly wonderful or as being completely disasterous. As the hare himself admitted he had come close to concluding that bits of the run were impossible but had persevered and found a way through. We would expect no less from Beaver who in this GPS pampered age of bolt-together runs, persists in going out and recceing real runs until they are ... well, until they are as good as they can get. We can quibble about the choice of paper, the lack of trails and the apparently interminable ascents, but we cannot fault the effort that went into setting the run, nor the eventual quality of the latter third which was, yes, spectacular.

Don't blame me - I set the short run!

Finally, let us not forget that this was a birthday run, as had been the not quite a monster run last week. Sex Star, along with Star Soccer and Beavershot all had their birthdays celebrated and the extended post-circle gatherings at both runs were in their honour. Probably a good time to mention another anniversary of sorts coming up in the near future, the Hatyai Full Moon Hash run #99.9, which for those of you who have been counting carefully will actually be the 100th run. Plans are being laid for an evening of running, eating, drinking and mildly lunatic behaviour at the Sai Keow Resort in a joint SH3/HFMH3 run on Saturday 20th July and there will be a camp out to follow or rooms available to rent if you get in quick. Regular full moonies will pay 100 Baht (excluding the room) and non-regulars if we can't find some good reason to reclassify them will pay, hmmm...200 Baht - not a lot anyway. Early booking is advised to guarantee... but that would be giving it away. Anyway, bookings will be accepted at next weekend's runs.

Testing

An anonymous hasher receives a relaxing massage in one of Songkhla's glittering nightlife establishments.

One of our valued correspondents reports a problem while trying to post here. So let's see if this works . . . .