I refuse to be drawn into a pointless sparring match with the Incredible Towed in reply to his scurrilous and garbled insults against my good name in last week's trash. Instead I will give a brief to the point account of the one thousand three hundred and eightieth running of the Himalayan hash.

Constant drizzle and overcast skies saw a hard core of 19 dedicated hashers turn up panting in anticipation at 3pm for another Saturday afternoon's entertainment. The fact that one of the hares had a day job as a transport planner may also explain the low turnout out of fear of being led astray by dodgy route planning. However, the route was actually meticulously planned as against all precedents of making-it-up-on-the-day every twist and turn had been mapped out beforehand. In spite of this there was still at least one major cock-up.

The rain continued as the pack followed the initial paper off down a shitty concrete staircase down to the first check by the Mahadev Khola. The trail continued in a north-westerly direction via Rawaltar and over a couple of ridges and another stream to holding check 4 by the road north of Dharmasthali. During this time Towed went missing at one stage and the three lead runners ran into a dead end where the hares had obviously cocked up their paper laying and couldn't find a way out.

Much of the trail was sticky, steep and narrow and half-virgin Jenny complained that it was a bit different to the London marathon.

The way to check 5 saw Towed, Keeled, and Rotter taking the low route and Shrivelled et al the high one. Check 5 scattered the pack to the four points of the compass. Keeled found the first paper leading down after what seemed like a lot more than 200 metres. Actually a lot of the distances on this course seemed a bit excessive with a couple of the false trail crosses marked an inordinate distance from the checks.

From here Flowery Shirt and Keeled led the way on a long and winding route, ignoring Check 6, and eventually coming to holding check 7 at Mahakaleshwor temple on the top of a hill. The walkie-talkies had already arrived and were nattering about shampooing their dogs etc. Eventually Hurry, Mark and Jenny turned up and “check it out" was called. Paper was soon picked up to the south and led the runners over the Sesmati khola and back over more ridges and streams to the startfinish.

The rain stopped and the sun came out as the circle started. The run was well received and the hares were awarded a minus 5 because Phutung -5 was written on a nearby sign. Virgin Jenny's admission that she was only a half-virgin caused some consternation. Shrivelled was then toasted for returning from an epic ascent of a Himalayan peak in a much depleted state and Keeled given a down-down for whingeing about last week's trash.

Sartorial-related down-downs were handed out to Night Owl for wearing plus fours, Andy M for not wearing his flowery shirt, and Keeled for donningearing a pair of winklepickers (actually purpose-built fell running shoes by Walsh of Bolton – 'running cobblers to the aristocracy since the 1948 Olympics').

Towed and one of the American gals were then had for bleeding on the hash. Towed later got another one for shouting at his bitch. Durga and Towed Under were called into the circle and down-downed as was Mark H for something he may or may not have done. Hurry Krishna got the latecomer's down-down as usual and soon GM Rotter was the only person who had not been had.

With this in mind the Hashit was unanimously awarded to Rotter especially as Shrivelled pointed out that the GM had been seen crawling around in the mud at one stage. And that was it for another Saturday.