A drizzly Sunday afternoon, 12 o’clock. Behind Amsterdam Central Station on the Ruyterkade the ferries deliver people from over the Ij. Between the cyclists and mopeds a small group of people wait, in sports clothes, rucksacks over their shoulders. Their hands plunged deep in their jogging trousers. It’s windy.

From across the street, along the embankment arrives the following group in sports gear.

"On on." cries a man in a grey training suit, specs, short spiky hair.

"Over here." answers a small stocky man in short trousers.

They shake hands, clap each other on the shoulder.

"Short trousers, man? It’s stone cold."

"Cold? Not at all, in Scotland we run even when it’s minus 10." Unadulterated Scottish accent.

He wanders through the group. It’s already half twelve.

Then the Scot throws his hands in the air.

"Okay, circle up. Explanation of the markings." The sporters gather around him.

Using flour he sows some circles on the ground with, therein, letters or signs: an S, a D or a cross. The markings with which, later, the track is to be found.

The man in the grey training suit comes up to me: "Are you a virgin?"

I have to confess: I have never before run a ´Hash`.

Every week they run, through weather and wind. In the winter Sunday afternoon, in the summer Monday evening because of the long light: the Hash House Harriers, a group of people who follow a set course of 8 to 10 kilometres through town centres, parks and woods. Principally expats, people from abroad who are living and working here for a time. The language is English, the whole event is English. The route itself, the Hash, is full of rituals and actions and above all drink pauses, the beerstops. ´The drinking club with a running problem` is what they call themselves, too. Running is incidental. "It is a very social event," tells Simon, a fifty-something in blue training suit, salesman from Australia, "most join in for the fun, not so much for the training and that fun always ends in a pub or a restaurant."

There are no winners, that’s not even allowed. "Nothing competitive, after all everyone has to finish at the same time." says Simon. Everything which leans towards fanatical behaviour is later punished at the evaluation. A lithe boy in Lycra pants does a few exercises beforehand. "That is also not allowed, you know. ´No stretching` is the tradition. He’ll hear that later in the Circle."

The group of runners varies every week, in combination, in numbers. Depending on the weather or the place of the route, whenever people feel like it. Despite the voluntary character newcomers, the virgins, don’t remain anonymous for long. Also visitors, whose Mother Hashes are in a different place, or even country, wherever they permanently Hash, have to make their status known. What follows is asking their Hash handle: the nickname every routine Hasher has ever had dished out. A name given because of a typical idiosyncrasy or quality, or because of a stupid act whilst running: the Australian salesman, Simon, is called ´Postman Prat`: "I once ran a Hash with a pile of letters under my arm. I wanted to post them before five o’clock, but no postbox to be found. Yes, we were running through the Amstedamse Bos. Postman Pat is a cartoon on English tv and ´Prat`, therefore Postman Idiot."

The dots, the markings and the checkpoints of the route are given in flour. "Highly visible and it washes away after a day or two". says Hans, the man in grey trainingsuit with specs. "For that matter we have had questions from the police about that. ´What we were doing`, that was in the time of those threats with anthrax. Then we consciously switched from meal to sawdust to differentiate ourselves. Like boys, we’re not terrorists, we don’t want splenic fever. But yeah sawdust, that blows quickly away."

Today the route leads through the innercity of Amsterdam. About 25 people are taking part this time and a couple are running ahead. "They’ll find the track for us," says Dave a young IT-er from Australia, still without Hash handle. He calmly walks with a number of girls.

"Yes, take it easy," says one of Dave’s companions, "I still have to wake up, it was late yesterday."

The checkpoints slow the quick runners, they have to find the trail. The Scot with nickname Doggy Style is the Hare today, the one who thought the route up. He fell once, whilst Hashing, over a Golden Retriever which came up to him and he could no longer avoid, dived over the ´Dog with Style`. He laughs when he sees the people running back and forth, looking for the correct sign on the ground. The lumps of flour can lead to a false trail. Along the embankment, a pair of streets in, along a residential area and the Tropical Museum. It’s not running but wandering. "We’re the slowest Hash in Europe and maybe the world." Beams Doggy Style. "Our trails are never longer than 5 km but always take an hour and a half!"

During this he passes out beer: "Have a sip." Postman Prat: "The route almost always goes through the middle of town. Most participants are visitors and they just want to see Amsterdam. This way they come to places the average tourist doesn’t see."

"Drinking stop!" A girls hangs out of a café door on the Oudekerksplein. She waves her arms. The quicker runners tarry around the bar. The café looks busy, a number walk on. A couple of meters further there is a circle with an ´S` in it.

"Songcheck!" shouts Doggy Style and he runs up enthusiastically.

"Form a Circle, people."

He starts a song. With strange gestures and postures he accompanies his lyric: "My name is Joe and I work in button factory." He totters around the runners. Quickly the whole group are joining in. Passers-by look on. Cyclists stop. From inside the café the quick runners laugh at them.

"Okay, on-on!" It continues quickly. Just a few more hundred metres and the end is in sight. This time that’s the Bokbier Festival, in the Berlage Beurs.

There is Hashing the whole world over. About 1400 groups exist spread over 160 countries. This world wide subculture of runners began once in 1938 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A number of Brits who lived and worked there shared a passion for the so-called ´paper chase` or ´hare and hound runs`; a game they knew from their time at school wherein the Hare sets out a trail with paper and the others, the Harriers, must follow. These Hashers ended the race in the local Selangor Club with the nickname ´Hash House`, because of the bad food, but good beer. The first Hash House Harriers popularised the event quickly, principally for the goal they set: the running had to work up so much thirst that it was a good excuse to quench it. British expats later introduced it into other countries and so the culture of Hashing spread over the whole world with a peak of new groups in the 70s and 80s.

There has been Hashing in the Netherlands since 1982 in three places. Amsterdam, the Hague and Assen, each with their own group. The organisation, the mismanagement, is informal, without club structure and is comprised totally of volunteers. "No rules". Via telephone calls back and forth and e-mail, each week, a run is set up: the Grand Master leads the whole thing, the Hare sets out the trail, the Religious Adviser looks after the rituals or, as it’s called, over the mental health of the Harriers. This health is always nurtured at the end of the run; the handing out of the Hash Handle in a naming ceremony; the punishing of participants for some action or other is accompanied with, preferably, beer.

On-on! The hunting cry with which a route is accompanied, the T-shirts from previously run Hashes as trophies, the ceremonies with beer: a Hash group functions as a small tribe. And that goes on, over the whole world, in, more or less, the same way. To join in, it has to come to peoples attention by coincidence. The Hashing world is therefore relatively unknown and exists only in the spare time of the participants. Or, as one of the female runners tells it "I don’t talk about this with my colleagues, no" But everyone is welcome, certainly.

Once aquainted with the phenomenon it is very easy to find other Hashes: runners seek the groups on the internet. Each Hash club has it’s own website, with the routes to be run, but also song texts, explanation of the rituals or ‘photos of the participants, mostly in a drunken state.

Hans maintains the Hague Hashers’ site. He tells, whilst nipping his bokbier at the festival: "It’s very simple, you look for a Hash on internet, where and what time it is to take place, you go there and you can join in. No problem."

Hans, with Hash handle Webfucker – ‘they found that I had ballsed up the site’ – travels around the world as sales manager and Hashes everywhere. "It is ideal, whenever you’re abroad. You immediately have a group of friends with whom you can hang out. Not just to Hash, but also to take part in other things."

Postman Prat joins us, once again with a filled glass: "It is an instant family, that’s what we call it. Everywhere you go you’ve immediately got a social life, and a place to sleep."

"Yes, that can always be arranged, you only have to leave a message on internet beforehand or make a ‘phone call."

Prat: "A couple of months ago I had a Danish group over. They ran with us as visitors, wanted to see Amsterdam."

Webfucker: "And it goes on the same way everywhere, really. Whether you Hash in India or Australia, everywhere there are the beerstops, the songs, the rituals. There can be regional differences in between, but that’s the fun. I once Hashed in Malaysia with a group where only Chinese was spoken. Naturally I understood none of it, but I could sing along with the English songs. They’re the same things. The language of beer and On-on appear universal."

At the back of the hall at the Bokbierfestival the rest group together in a circle. Time for the last ritual: the evaluation. The Hash gets a mark, the route is made fun of, the people who went the wrong way, laughed at. Whilst the pint-pullers from behind their bokbier stands watch the whole thing, a number of Harriers ‘earn’ a ‘Down-Down’: with a glass of beer in hand they are pulled into the circle. The others start up a song: "Drink it down, down, down, down, down." Empty it in one, that glass.

A ‘punishment’ that the Religious Advisor dishes out to those who set the trail, to those who are visiting or, to name but one, those with shoes which are a bit too new: Postman Prat is the victim. He has to drink beer from one of his shoes. Dribbles fall on the ground. Later he is dancing wildly to the percussion group who are playing. Most Harriers land in the circle for the most innocent of things.

"Hey, aren’t you here for the first time?" calls Webfucker. He sticks a finger toward me, glass in hand. Ad Fundum.

(Ad fundum = Latin for ´to the bottom` or ´to the end`. In other words:- Drink it down down down down……)

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