Cheep And Nasty

No! NO NO NO!!
How many times - excuse me, I have to insert a rubber underbite here to ensure I do not grind my teeth to powder thanks to rage - do I have to tell you about spelling mistakes?  They simply do not happen here.  That title is there because I wish to tell you about the end of the world.

Planet Earth in a few decades

     Okay, bear in mind that some sinister undefined apocalyptic cause has swept the planet clean of Hom. Sap. and that - no, it's not some silly aliens who focus on noise and who wouldn't know the difference between the cocking of a rifle bolt and a branch swaying in the wind - there are no humans left, but their pets can still be found.

Parrot quartet

     In which case, you will still be able to hear the tones of human speech, since parrots will carry on their hilarious mimicry of humans and keep on about wanting a fillet mignon, or a cracker if you were boring and conventional.
     None of which has to do with anything I'm now going to bang on about, except in that we are edging closer to the word "Cheap", which is relevant, Vulnavia.
     If you recall, Your Humble Scribe was wittering about a film he thought he heard many years ago: "Cut Rate Gravity".  There was absolutely no trace of this anywhere on the internet, at all, nohow.  Conrad filed it under "Perdition" and -
     Could I have gotten the title wrong?  Could it perhaps be "Cheap Rate Gravity"?  Same concept, different spelling?  Art!

It could indeed

     It turns out that the writer is one James Moran, who has a long history of work in film and television.  I've not delved into his biography very deeply yet, so I don't know if the short above was the beginning of his glorious career or not, thanks to winning the SFX short film script competition.  But I shall find out, and let you know what I find.      Now, motley, a duel with chainsaws beckons!

Non-lethal ones, mind.

A Locomotive Of Thought
I don't know if you've ever encountered a person with the first name of "Noli"; I did on Friday.
     Of course, Conrad being Conrad, this inevitably sparked a train of thought - of kinds - hence the title.  Because of a phrase "Noli Me Tangere" which went whizzing through the grey matter.
     "What does it mean?" I mused to myself, aloud, as I was alone in the lift then and thus didn't have to worry about scaring people.  Oh, and this took place at work, so I couldn't check my Brewers*.      Well, Wiki, which will do in a pinch if one doesn't have a Brewer's to hand, says it is Latin for "Touch me not", which is what Jesus said to Mary Magdelene when she recognised him after his being resurrected.  Art?

Thus

     Now, he wasn't being snippy, as theologians by the thousand have explained subsequently; he was being awesomely epigraphical about the transubstantiation of the material into the sublime - I think, it's all rather complicated.
     And from there my rubbish-tip skip of a brain inevitably sprang upon the "Tangere" which is ever so close to "Tangmere", which those of you with wit and wisdom will recognise as one of the Fighter Command stations of the Second Unpleasantness.  Art?

The Teutons pay a visit

     It took a terrific pasting in August, when the Luftwaffe bombed the very dickens out of it, though they never managed to put it out of action YAH BOO SUCKS TO YOU ADOLF! during the Battle of Britain.  Art?

SQUADRON SCRAMBLE!

     If Tangmere got it in the neck because it was on the south coast and thus close to Occupied France, it was also able to retaliate with some lethal mischief of it's own, as 161 Squadron's Lysanders used the base to operate from.  What did they do?  They carried over spies and agents and saboteurs and all manner of wicked people intent on doing horrid things to the Teutons, as well as operating as a taxi service and bringing them back again.

Makers of military mischief

     Not a bad yield from a single first name, is it?

Back To Hair Scare In The Air
Yes, Rapunzel and her chamber in the clouds. If you recall, Conrad has taken this fairy-tale apart with his relentless use of logic**, and last we were here, Rap was busy making stupid plans about escaping via a silk ladder that would take weeks, if not months, to assemble.
     Well, don't forget old Witchie-poo has a magic ball and can see this and that, and naturally she discovers Rap's secret lover visitor and waits until Princey is climbing up Rap's un-naturally long braid - then she cuts off Rap's hair, causing Princey a trouser-changing moment when he falls into a thorn bush and is blinded.  Fortunately there were no brown bears in the offing.

Bare of bears

     Ah. I see - so NOW Witchie-poo suddenly knows how to cut hair?  Strange how she hasn't managed this in over 17 years - this sniffs of deus ex machina to me.  How is she going to get up into the tower's chamber now?  Come to that, how on earth is she going to get down?  Those thorn bushes at the bottom look a bit unforgiving.

No, Art!  <sighs and charges up Tazer>

     Witchie-poo then instigates her cunning plan to prevent Rap from escaping by snapping her fingers and extinguishing half the lifeforms across the Universe sending Rap far across the lands to the middle of nowhere.  

Storrs, Sheffield.  \The middle of nowhere indeed.

     Hang on, what was the point of having her stuck in the tower in the first place?  And now she's not only free, she's far beyond the reach of Witchie-poo.  Witchie-poo sounds as dumb as Bluebeard did.  Premature stupidity a terrible thing, eh?     Poor blind Princey wanders the lands himself, fruitlessly searching for Rap, desperate to be with her again, until one day he hears her excellent singing voice and the two are reunited and Rap weeps tears that fall onto Princey's empty eye sockets and suddenly his eyes reappear, and they both live happily ever after.
     This, frankly, is stretching the bounds of probability to the limits of their elastic deformation, and I still don't get how Princey knew Rap had been magicked out of the tower when he's, you know, GOT NO EYES.  And that vindictive old trout Witchie-poo promptly forgets all about Rap and never follows up on her again?  She must have been drinking the same water as Rap's parents.  Bah!
And there we shall leave it for tonight!


* Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, not the makers of beer.
**  And sheer nastiness! <the awful truth courtesy Mister Hand>