Date: 2/4/2014
Hare: Astro/Cut Loose
Location: Cheltenham Park, Park Road, Cheltenham
12th Anniversary of GG’s heart attack at Heart Attack Park – Much of the following involves GG, but he is the gift that keeps on giving.
On 3 April 2002, GG had his heart attack. His breathing and vital signs stopped and he floated up to heaven through the pearly gates. God welcomed him and commented “GG, I see Richmond beat Collingwood by 37 points last week”. This prompted GG to go off like a fire cracker in a feather factory. God thought to himself “I’ll have to grow cloth ears if I spend much time with this bloke. I think I’ll bump him back to earth.” Which is why we’ve had the pleasure of GG’s company for the last 12 years.
The start of the run was uneventful until it got interesting. When young No Balls originally joined Lakeside Hash, GG’s first bit of advice was “Always be on the lookout for a root”. He may as well have said “Ignore all advice from cranky old farts” because ignore him she did when she lost an argument with a protruding mallee root and crashed to earth near the 3rd fairway of Cheltenham Public Golf Course. Gallant male hashers delicately side-stepped the prone harriette and ran on.
Demonstrating all the sensitivity of a hippo in the Myer glassware department, Astro thought it would be great to celebrate GG’s near death experience by running the pack past Cheltenham Cemetery – it’s known as the Pioneer Cemetery so at least he got the demographics right.
Me and 5 others only did half the run because we followed Wet Patch. Because he’s English and the World map used to have lots of pink bits, we thought he knew what he was going. He didn’t. So this is the end of the run part of the run report. After excellent 2 course dinner we had the circle.
Arise Sir GG.
The previous honours system was devised by leftie pinko republicans smoking mung beans, so it’s marvellous that we’re striding into the 1950s with some new honours. The stand-in sergeant Udder ordered it and the stand-in RA Klingon carried it out – the investiture of GG into the knighthood. GG was originally named for Sir John Kerr, Australia’s Governor General in the 1970s. When your scribe, Cheesecake was very, very, very young, I went to the Melbourne Cup at Flemington in November 1977. It’s customary for the GG to make a speech to assembled dignitaries and present the Cup to the winning owners. Sir John Kerr proceeded with:
“I’d like to present (hic) the Cup (hic, hic) to the owners and trainer, ber, Bert, I mean Bart Cummings (hic) and let’s not forget the horse, pink and blue? Green and red? Now I remember (hic, hic) Black and Gold, err Gold and Black”.
Talk about a Drinking Club with a running problem. Here we had a Governor General with a stand-upright-and-make-a-5-minute-speech-without-falling-over problem. The newspapers at the time described Sir John as ‘flushed and obviously tired’ and ‘in high spirits’ and ‘in a mood less restrained than usual’. Commemorating the wonderfully sozzled Sir John, henceforth, our GG is to be known as Sir GG.
At this point the GM came over all serious and said that because of the excitement caused by UCT at the 1600th circle last week, we are no longer allowed to breach Section 101, Part 6 of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010. However same-sex groping is still OK. Many years ago the Tax Office got twitchy about discrimination and harassment laws and decided to issue an information pamphlet to all its employees with the hilariously ambiguous title “Sexual Harassment: Your Responsibility”.
Charges:
- Welcome to visitors Matty, Andrew, Dougall, Barbara and Andrea from Sydney.
- Tricky awarded Astro 13/100 for the run – he lost points for flying golf balls.
- Cut Loose got 100/100 for the food – fabbo as usual.
- GG because it is his Resurrection run.
- We had a newbie as stand-in for GG’s daughter who was designated a Baroness.
- NickelBee for saying that same-sex groping is OK.
- Astro for being the only hare ever to get lost on his own run.
- Janine for doing stretches.
- Barbara for saying that she was married to an idiot and thereby offending Udder Idjit.
- Leah for just being naughty.
- Cheesecake for taking a detour to her post office box.
- No Balls for going down on Cheltenham Oval.
- Udder for not helping to put No Balls back on her feet.
- Pointy for only bringing the BMW and not the Porsche.
- Lotsa for sitting in circle.
- Cooch, E&B, Kokup and Punch for being late comers.
- Cut Loose for losing Wet Patch’s car keys.
- Klingon for training Toffee to wrap E&B in leather.
- Nicklebee and LouBang because at GG’s recent Melbourne Men’s run from heart attack Park, 3 elderly hashers subsequently had triple by-passes. Proximity to Cemetery might come in useful.
- Colin the Bystander, who had 4 cans of Bourbon for dinner, said we were a wonderful group and we looked like we had great respect for alcohol. If only he’d had that 5th can, we would have looked like a group of super models and Olympic athletes.
Next Week’s run:
Tricky Dicky and Gringa from Central Club Hotel corner Swan and Coppin Street Richmond. In the late 1990s the Tax Office was liaising with professional organisations and community groups to soften them up for GST introduction. We organised to meet with reps from the Lap Dancers, Strippers and Ancillary Services Organisation at the Central Club Hotel. But none of the girls turned up. Turns out they didn’t want to hear that henceforth everything would be inflated by 10%.
Stand-in Scribe – Cheesecake