New Year 2021 Hash Trash

Bali Hash House Harriers 2

NATURE NOTE HASH TRASH QUISQUILLIAE SUNDAY JAN 3

NO HASH yesterday that I’m aware of, but still something to say. First the Drongo Cuckoo. Definitely two kinds here, and both most vocal. You’d never see birds unless you heard them first. Loud and clear and openly perched on a dead twig of the durian, I watched it in full cry for at least two minutes – one, two, three, four, five, six – wings jerking at each ascending note. The tail was deeply forked like your actual drongo, whereas others I’ve had in the garden had square tails. The difference is striking, otherwise birds look and sound the same. Payne (The Cuckoos OUP 2005) split them into Surniculus lugubris Square-tailed D-C and Surniculus dicruroides Fork-tailed, and judging by the outpourings of the latter, it will be overwintering here like the goshawks.

So, if no run yesterday, what is there to say about our BALI H311? Not a lot, but having hashed in 60 odd hashes in at least 20 lands over the years, beginning with Singapore in the mid-sixties, allow me to say that BALI HASH HOUSE HARRIERS II is second to none.

When I started in Sing, it was all blokes following one paper trail, and everyone drank a shandy of beer and ginger beer. No circle, no songs – that came later at Jo Coco’s, Tangle Inn, Punggol Point or the Eyes and Piles. But no matter. We all paid the same dues and, as far as I know, we were not officially registered as a Club: same in KL, though they were obliged to become a legal entity soon after.

Okay, so we’re different. We have to be. We’re not all refugees from urban cubicles, escaping from the missus, and letting down what remains of our hair on a Monday night (then spending most of Tuesday at the Eyes and Piles composing the weekly HASH TRASH),

Those were the days begad. But I still say that, ideally, as a club, whether official or otherwise, all so-called adults (irrespective of drinking habits) should pay the same run fee and prosecute the same trail and, if you can’t manage the whole, just do part – TOGETHER AND LOUDLY – ON ON