Cross Word? Apoplectic Word!

For Those Not Familiar With Conrad's Frothing Nitric Ire -
 - "Apoplectic" means "Very very cross indeed", yeah verily unto the gnashing of teeth, if you want to be Biblical about it.  I won't go as far as rubbing ash into my hair, for two reasons:  i) my hair being a snowy white and ashen grey already, you'd never notice, and ii) this would require another shower, and I had one this morning to be fresh and acceptable to my fellow man.  Nor is that all - I won't bother with the rending of garments either, as my clothing is mostly of robust textiles that would necessitate an entirely untoward degree of effort to rend. 
     "What on earth is the old duffer going on about now?" I hear you quibbling.  Pausing only to note that I'm flattered you didn't add anything about mental slowness in there, I shall explicate.
     If you are doing a Cryptic Crossword then you expect a certain degree of ambiguity about the questions.  You ought to be able to look back on the answer with a certain degree of "Oh yes of course!" and you would expect the compiler to get the number of letters correct.
     However, allow me to add in an illuminating picture.

"FLATFISH"

     "Sole representative of this kind of flower" (7).  Note that there are actually 8 letters in the answer.  EIGHT!      Do you understand that clue in terms of the answer?  Me neither.  Neither did Rosie or Phil when I showed them (having anticipated a longer wait in the Pleasant than actually occurred.
     Well, I feel a lot better having got that off my chest.  As for you lot, I don't really care if it's made you more miserable or not*.

Now that the Intro is out of the way, full speed ahead for more wibbling nonsense!

"First Light" By Geoffrey Wellum
Back to Geoff and Conrad's wicked look ahead before reading the prior text**.  During the commencement of Operation Pedestal, Geoff had the responsibility of navigating a squadron of twelve Spitfires, to be flown off the aircraft carrier 'Furious' and piloted to Malta.

HMS Furious.  No, I've no idea what those erected wires are for

     Things were made more fraught during their preparation for take off when their fellow carrier 'Eagle' was torpedoed.  Aircraft carriers were basically the floating equivalent of a giant target with "TORPEDO ME" painted on them in day-glo pink lettering twenty yards high.  This lent a certain swiftness to their leaving the flight deck.

The Eagle goes down

     That wasn't all.  To save weight on a very long trip, all their ammunition was removed and replaced with -
     Cigarettes.
     The old coffin-nail, you see, is a lot lighter than a bullet or cannon round; also Malta had many, many bullets yet no cigarettes.  Taking out belts of .303 ammunition allowed the carriage of many a fag***.

The terror of the skies.  No - ahng on -

     I'm sure you see the flaw in this plan.  No?
     Well, if these particular Spitfires had encountered any hostile Axis aircraft they'd have been hard put to defend themselves.  "Watch out!  I may give you emphysema or lung cancer in twenty years time" is unlikely to deter a Luftwaffe pilot in an Me 109.

Diabetes Here We Come!
You may remember that giant jar of sweets and lollipops that Conrad won with Maths Skillz before Christmas.  I've ditched the gloasting photo of it sitting on my desk, but I can compensate with another of it sitting empty.  Art?

     There you are.  I feel proud at having single-handedly emptied it.  You may look on with a touch of respectful awe and wonder.

Sigmund Would Have Something To Say -
Ol' Siggy Freud, that is, although Conrad understands that Siggy is very much out of favour in modern psychology today, but what the heck, he's good for a short article.
     What did I espy from The Electric Goldfish Bowl today?  A construction company really going for the "Over-achieving With A Crane Jib" award.  If that award doesn't exist, then I just made it happen.  Art?

Over-reaching in every sense

     Any longer and you'd be able to walk off the end and into Neil Armstrong's footprints ...

Finally
What you see here is the seamless product of working on three different computers - the Intro done at work, then the majority added via my laptop, and the polishing and photographs courtesy the PC.
     Take note, crabby and temperamental PC, there's a new kid in town who's a lot faster and more reliable than you are.  Any future problems and - well, you know ...

"Help for technical issues on your PC"
"A computer shooting game"

*  I'm horrid that way.
**  I know.  Pure spirit of evil, that's me.
***  British slang.  South Canadians stop sniggering at the back!