I knew this was going to be tough, having been tipped off by Seaman Stains that a 10km “Short” Run was to be augmented by a further 7km for the Long Runners.
A small pack of 34 gathers at the A-site. Fucking Dog & Peler are hard at work as ever preparing the beer truck. Sign-up completed, with disbursements handled faultlessly by new Hash Cash BNB (a man with a nose for money), and the first circle commences. Welcome to Bush Virgin Grumpy and three others, as yet unnamed. New JM Pussy Virus remembers the Three Bush Commandments and the run in Roman numerals, so not a bad start. The unholy alliance of V.V. & Seaman Stains explains the run, loins are girded and off we wheeze…
“A little learning is a dangerous thing”, and so it proves for Peler at the first check, where our famed orienteer holds up all the back markers with the admonition that the pack would shortly be back. The real trail, he knows from experience, lies off to the right. Certainty is replaced by several minutes of embarrassed silence, then by a period of head-shaking and Nordic muttering, before defeat is morosely admitted and we all set off about a kilometre adrift.
No harm done as we all reassemble at the next check, where the Big Nosed Bastard is busily impersonating a headless chicken, flapping his arms and spouting “FT, FT”.
It’s nice out there, undulating and green, with splendid views of lake and golf course, to say nothing of the occasional Harriette’s arse.
But much of the run is spent in splendid isolation, punctuated by glimpses of my regular mid-pack travelling companions Arseaholic and Barbie Doll. But they’re too quick for me today, and I fall into step with Smiling Brown Spider. Talk about pound-for-pound boxers – this guy has to be the finest year-for-year runner on the Bush. Even if he is a Lazy Bastard when it comes to Haring & Scribing. SBS has been around longer than the cuckoo clock, and is marginally more articulate.
After an interesting scary moment involving a ground vine tripwire and an extemely deep well, we find the pack once more regrouped at a check in a field. BNB is once again the funky chicken, and eventually Jellobutt (or maybe some other FRB I sight about as often as Halley’s Comet) calls On On.
After that it’s a long amble in with Drippy, who regales me with epic tales of limitless sexual prowess, all of which appear to have been compressed into one six-hour period and one street (also with a six in it). Still, it makes a change from Arsenal.
So engrossing is this catalogue of perversion (lucky sod!), that we do the ovine thing and follow the rest of the pack back along the road to the bus. Wrong. The water-stop is apparently in the other direction. But that’s enough for me in my current phase of post-gout rehabilitation.
Seaman Stains wonders where the Long Runners have got to, but eventually Pussy Virus emerges from the hinterland. It must have been tough; there are uncharacteristic tinges of pink on his normally post-mortem flesh. Fini the Faggot, is next to turn up, but is deemed by those behind him to have short-cut out of a quarry when his hair dye started to run as fast as him. Nonetheless this does not stop Fini crowing about little nations (ie Norway & Belgium) finishing ahead of the mighty USA and , ahem, the once-mighty Brits.
On cue, Jellobutt, Big Nosed Bastard and other Uebermenschen appear on the horizon. BNB is looking the worse for wear, which surely can’t have anything to do with his previous night’s contribution to the Kloster brewery. Speaking of which, Fucking Dog & Peler, since Kloster appears to be the beer of choice amongst one-third of those present at the Circle… hey, you guys do a great unsung job, so I won’t keep on about this…why is there only one case of Kloster?
From Kloster famine (I promise this is the last mention) to meatball feast, as Seaman Stains again demonstates there is more to Irish cuisine than the humble potato. Rumour has it these meat balls are all hand-rolled on the thighs of Celtic colleens. Spare a thought for Seaman Swallow though, who will have to spend the weeks until the May Bush swallowing the excess thoughtfully prepared for at least another 30 absentees.
A truly extraordinary performance while all this is going on by Bush Virgin Bart De Rudder, who succeeds in obliterating not just one but two of our long-serving Hash Seats. Inevitably perhaps, he is later christened Stool Sample.
Concern mounts for back-marking Long Runner Harry Potter, but he wanders in with a grin as broad as Belgium and plaudits for the Hares for good checks and good false trails.
Time for new Joint Master Pussy Virus to show us what he’s made of. Clearly not mere flesh, blood and bones, judging by his storming solo run over the latter stages of today’s marathon, even though he does persist in belying his masculinity by swathing his lilywhite limbs in a skirt.
“Psst!”, Pussy Virus has whispered surreptitiously before the Circle, “I have something for you!” How exciting! Could this be the B10,000 the absent Weed Eater claims the Bush is owed for throwing him in the pool at the AGPU? Could it be the replacement S2H3 water-pack proffered at the March Circle? No, but it is a genuine Norwegian invention, apparently reflecting the tightwad | 
