The on-in for Hash 1407 was the same open fields used by Yogi Hare for run 1367. The absence of all the usual suspects led Grumblewald to amazingly volunteer to be GM for the afternoon. BigJim had turned down the chance muttering something about being unused to public speaking! Grumble put in a sterling performance and ran the hash with Germanic efficiency.

Etienne, Gregory and their cohorts gave a somewhat rambling explanation about the two kinds of paper used to mark the walkers' and runners' trails. The two kinds were a coarsely shredded Canadian type and a much finer grade version. It was not quite clear which type was for which trail and it sounded like a recipe for confusion as most of the pack, as usual, were not paying proper attention to the hares' briefing.

The run started with the paper leading off to the west to trace an hour and a half long clockwise circuit along narrow slippery paths.

It was after check 1 passed that things began to go wrong as Grumble, Keeled, Paras, and several others followed the wrong kind of paper. They arrived at what was actually runners' check 4 that was strangely marked with a holding check in one kind of paper besides an ordinary check in the other kind. This strange marking was explained as being due to the hares being Belgian. It was at this point that late-coming virgin Alex sprinted into view to a slightly confusing introduction to hashing. Suspicions began to arise that we were going the wrong way as paper was found only 20m above the check. The thinly laid paper trail proved hard to find and the runners were spread across the pine tree hillside searching for the elusive markers until definitive calls of on-on came from over the other side of the ridge. The misled were soon reunited with the rest of the runners at holding check 3 further along the ridge.

Most of the runners now caught on to the fact that they should be following the finer paper. The way to holding check 4 was not too difficult to find (as half of the pack had just run it the other way around) and from here my recollections of the rest of the run are somewhat hazy. At one point the trail crossed a stream a couple of times to make sure that everybody got their feet wet. The other holding check was by a main track eventually leading back to the chariots after quite a bit of ascending and descending. It was a bit later that several of the backmarking runners, including newcomer Chris, panted in to view somehow from completely the opposite direction from where the paper had led in.

Grumblewald commanded a very orderly circle partly due to the absence of most of the master baiters and other usual rabble rousers. The hares were awarded a well deserved 9.9 for a well set run through good hashing country.

The stand-in GM then welcomed the four virgins, a couple of visitors, and returnee Apple with down-downs. Apple, who is renowned for not knowing the words to the hash song after 15 years of hashing, somehow managed to lead the singing to down-down the hash crashers. Grumble had had a spectacular crash that saw him disappearing off the trail into the undergrowth below. A human chain of several volunteers had pulled him back on to the trail. Down downs were also dealt out to Itchy and Mrs Itchy for 40 years of married bliss and to somebody for wanking.

The hashit went to Itchy Balls for providing half-shredded (half-cut?) Canadian paper and our thanks go to Mrs Rotter for providing the snacks.