HEROES & VILLAINS.

Sometimes, especially with a local r*n where everyone is already familiar with all the footpaths, highways and byways, it is appropriate to skip over details of the trail (it was dark anyway - couldn't see a bl**dy thing to tell you about even if I wanted to), and concentrate instead on some of the characters who take part in these collective acts of sado-masochism. Like any other field of human endeavour, hashing has its good guys and bad guys, and here, dear reader, are my nominations for R*n 655.

Village Villain has to be Fiddler On The Hoof, no doubt about it. Too tight-fisted to pay the £2 for his missus to do the r*n, too tight-fisted to buy her a meal at the On Inn afterwards. Lower than a snake's belly, that man. Oh, he brought her to the On Inn sure enough - so she could stand by the table salivating, inhaling the tantalising aromas of the various gorgeous dishes being ingested (great Steak & Ale Pie by the way, highly recommended, well done The Station!), and hoping in vain that someone would leave a chip or two on their plate. We'd always assumed that Second Fiddle's lean and hungry look was a conscious fashion decision on her part, a lifestyle choice just like heroin chic was in the '80s. Nothing of the sort - F.O.T.H. deliberately keeps her half-starved. Rumour has it that he has her roam the house at night, ready to devour any intruders, because he's too stingy to buy a burglar alarm or a guard dog. Fortunately, Baldbrick tossed an unwanted bread roll in her direction, otherwise who knows which of us she would have eaten!

Hash Hero? Baldbrick, surely. The athletic prowess of that man knows no bounds. He completed a 75-minute trail in a little over a quarter of an hour, and was back at the pub a good hour before the rest of us got there. You could tell he'd given it his all and stretched his body to the limits of human endurance by the way his eyes were glazed over and his speech was slurred. Jealous rivals may claim that he peeled off from the pack at the bottom of Quernmore Road, and indeed I have even heard it said that his premature appearance at The Station was pre-arranged so that Bubbles would not have to drink alone, but I will have none of it. None of us saw him overtake the pack because he was moving at such incredible speed, with his torch turned off, thus taking him beyond the threshold of our visual acuity.

A brief note on the trail: it was nice of the Hares to have us run along the pavement-less Quernmore Road, obviously assuming that being pancaked by an oncoming car would achieve a more rapid and humane demise than a slow, lingering death from exposure and frostbite. Also, the Video Assistant Referee is taking another look at the incident involving Forever Blowing, whose early crash-out and subsequent retirement to the On Inn was deemed suspicious in some quarters; personally, I'm just glad that The Station Hospital was able to supply appropriate medication to hasten her recovery...

On on to another Lurch & Morticia mystery tour!