Flying Ford Anglia - The Rest of the Story

Greetings, my friends...this is Pawl Harvey, sitting in for my friend and fifth cousin, or so he claims, Earl Fando. Today, I'm visiting with you to bring you (interminable pause)... the rest...of the...(long coffee break) story.

First though, a word about Nitro Motor Oil. I use Nitro in all my vehicles, from the Model T I drove as a middle aged radio newsman, to the Lamborghi I drive when I want to pick up saucy widowed grandmothers and Madonna, when she's on the prowl. Nitro motor oil will put a kick in your car, and in...your...(wait for it) life. Now to our story.

South West Film Studios, St. Agnes, Cornwall, England, United Kingdon, Planet Earth, in the Sol star system, the Milky Way Galaxy, in the universiric quadrant of Brabulucalosiricon Twelve, fourth dimension. It was an unseasonably warm Friday, October the 26th, when security guard Reg Pewter was conducting his rounds through the studio. He was always careful to double-check everything on the Harry Potter sets and storage units. He knew that Harry Potter fans were desperate for any kind of souvenir from the films or the popular young actors in them. why it was only a year ago that one enterprising young lady fan tried to make off with Harry Potter star Dan Radcliffe's undershorts, which Dan happened to be in at the time. Reg also remembered the time two teenaged boys named Salvador and Luis tried to slip out of the studio with the shoes of young actress Emma Watson. Reg smiled to himself as he recalled that by the time he and other security agents had gotten to the little perverts, young Emma had caught them and thrashed them within an inch of their lives with a hairbrush, not because of the shoes, but because they had accidentally bumped a kitten in the shin on their way out.

Reg walked into Storage Building #27 and shone his light around the darkened metal structure. Everything seemed to be in its place. The Quidditch outfit from The Prisoner of Azkaban that made Harry look like Robin, the Boy Wonder in Batman Forever; the giant mechanical spider from Chamber of Secrets that took twenty men to operate, and smelled of Watney's Red Barrel because two grips took it to a New Year's party the year before and , unable to steer the great mechanical beast themselves, crashed into a off-license in Mousehole, and the elaborate Mirror of Erised from Sorceror's Stone (known to the Brits as Philosopher's Stone) which for some reason had wound up on the ceiling of Robby Coltrane's trailer for a whole month before anyone noticed it was missing. Finally, he checked on his favorite item, a run-down little Ford Anglia that sat in a corner, covered with a tarpulin and a sign that said "Warning! Ford Anglia!!" He walked toward the corner of the building that the beloved little sedan sat in and shone his light at it...but...it...was...(pause long enough to read Act I of Hamlet) GONE!

Gone! Gone! Gone! Like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds on Bill Shatner's debut album, the Anglia was gone. Reg sprinted from the building to the security office, dodging Kenneth Brannagh, Brian Blessed, Helen Bonham Carter, and Captain Beany on the way. He rang the local constables and told them to come as quickly as possible.

St. Agnes Police Constable Elvis O'Herlihy arrived at the scene with his crack investigative squad. Constable O'Herlihy was a veteran of 25 years of police work, despite being only 34 years old. He had worked long and hard to build up great respect as one of the West Country's finest detectives, and to get people to stop making fun of his name by referring to him behind his back as "Ol' Swivelhips." Despite his vast experience though, he and his staff were left with an impentrably vague collection of evidence: Tire tracks that ran for 100 metres and then vanished, and a small strand of light colored hair. Baffled he paced up and down the studio lot, thinking as quickly as his too tight constable's hat would allow him to.

Suddenly, his face lit up into a sly, yet dignified grin. He had put the small bits of clues together to form an incredible story. His staff had suggested that theives had rolled the car out and then loaded it into a waiting hovercraft, but he dismissed that because the studio gated were seven millimetres too small for a standard Griffon 8000TD hovercraft to have gotten through, and that was the only size hovercraft that could do the job. No, he had a clear idea what had happened and immediately obtained an arrest warrant for one Lindsey Lohan and a certain VW Bug named Herbie.

Constable O'Herlihy pointed out the Anglia, no matter how beaten up and unreliable on four wheels, was a flying car, but such a car in its battered state would need some assistance gettign up to speed to reach liftoff. He posited that Lindsay Lohan, fresh from her success in the latest of Disney Herbie saga, but jealous over the massive popularity of the Harry Potter series, had convinced the impressionable Volkswagen to take her to the studios. There, they strapped the Anglia to Herbie's roof, thus accounting for the one set of tracks. In her rush to get back into the car Lindsay clipped her hair in the door, severing a single strand, which floated to earth beside the tracks. Analysis revealed that the hair had received several different kinds coloring treatments over its lifespan, particularly red. O'Herlihy had done it. He had solved this most peculiar crime.

Or...had...(watch Gone with the Wind - twice) ...he? For what this industrious and clever constable had not accounted for was that another light-haired individual was in the studios that morning, a deviously clever person who shared Lohan's fascination for unique magical cars and the tendency to dye their hair to get it to resume its natural luster. How do I know this my friends? Because I am the one who stole the Anglia, and even now am flying it over the Devon countryside, typing this on my Blackberry with the satellite Internet connection. The hair was mine, and the tire tracks? I quickly changed tires on the Anglia to the familar brand used by Herbie, using my years of experience in the pits at Daytona, where I spend each spring. Finally there was the tricky business of getting some pep into the rusted old Anglia. How did I manage that, my friends? Why, with Nitro motor oil, the motor oil that puts a kick in your car and in your life! Now, if you'll pardon me, I'm off to cruise Bristol for dowagers...and that...is the rest... (knit a cardigan for King Kong)...of the...(travel to Jupiter and back) ....sto...(read Library of Congress) ...ry!