The Rip in the Fabric of the Universe ...

"Ya ken?"
"I dinna even know ye were Scottish!" replied Frontbottom looking even more preplexed.
"I'm ...

.. beginning to think this conversation is not going anywhere." The normally imperturbable Dogsbreath was feeling rattled.

"I'm feeling rattled. Let's start again. You asked me about my pole and how I managed to prevent the Very Little Gravitas Indeed from foundering on those rocks ...."

"(Toot!) Yes, that's it, old chap. Then you said something utterly incomprehensible." Frontbottom looked not at all rattled but was unusually attentive. "I'm all ears," he said.

"Well, dunno about that, mate! I mean, there's a touch of the wingnut, for sure. But compared with some people - HRH Prince Chuck, for example ..."

"Oh do get on with it, for heaven's sake! No need to comment on a chap's ears, I mean to say ..." Frontbottom busied himself with his pipe, muttering under his breath. However, he continued to pay close attention to his fox-hatted companion.

"OK. It must have occurred to you before now that the events connected with the Rip are not purely random happenstance. Take Michelle of the Resistance, for example. She and her girls can cross the Rip when summoned. Sponcracker and his droids are able to move to and fro without let or hindrance. So it must also have occurred to you that someone exercises control over the Rip. Right!"

"Oh, well yes! Absolutely old man. Of course. Knew someone was in control all along (Toot!)" Frontbottom affected a knowing nonchalance.

Dogsbreath gazed at him for a long moment.

"Yair. Well. The control was exercised by me, sport. Yer friendly Aussie Rip Lord. Don't much like the Lord bit, meself. Doesn't sit well with my credentials as an Aussie but it's a convenient way of explaining that nothing and no-one gets through the Rip In The Fabric Of The Universe without my say-so. Until very recently, that is. There's been a bit of a blue in the space-time continuum and a couple of things have happened outside my control."

"Things like what, old chap? Or should I call you M'Lud?"

"Jeez, mate! No! Just call me Dogsbreath! Things like that upimself bugger Moichael O'Flatulence nipping in and out, for example. Not to mention Tim and Tam O'Shanter."

"Tim and Tam O'Shanter?"

"Thought I told you not to mention them!"

Frontbottom was completely gobsmacked.
"Bugger me." he said. "Just when I thought this thread was stuffed, when I thought the evil giant had destroyed the RITFOTU by introducing the orange room and taking away the need to bend the rules by being rude here and getting away with it. Open Slather they called it. Almost killed us as quick as video killed the radio star. Just so he didn't have any naughtiness to edit. Hmph! Now you tell me an Aussie is a time lord!"
"Not a Time lord you sook, a Rip Lord. Dogsbreath to you."
"But what about Roger trying to escape to the real world?"
"Well..." said Dogsbreath......"that is another matter. You see....

...Roger is really a figment of Frontbottom's imagination."

" Well, that's not exactly true." replied Dogsbreath. "Although I can see why you'd think that. You see, Roger is actually my assistant. He is at this very moment on the other side of the rip seeking guidance from the Rip god.
I sent him there in a desperate attempt to save this thread from deletion.
You see I am the spokesperson of the god on this side of the rip. Hence the name "Dog's breath."
"But, "said Frontbottom "Then your name would be God's breath, wouldn't it?"
"Ah yes said Dog's breath. But that would seem too much like sacrilege and anyway the readers all assumed that it was just dyslexia on the part of the writers. All those jokes about the dyslexic insomniac philosopher wondering if there really is a dog were closer to the truth than they ever knew."
Just then Roger, dressed like either the men in black or one of the blues brothers, came charging through the rip yelling we're on a mission from dog.
After conferring with Roger privately for several minutes the Rip lord announced.
"Listen to me. This is an emerency. This is a warship and we are now officially on a mission. Therefore I am ordering all non essential personell off the ship right now. Everyone who didn't originally come from this world or the original launching of this ship must get off right now. "
And as simply as that all and sundry departed through the Rip.
The ship rose several feet higher in the water and the Rip lord called to Nemo
"You, Penguin, stop buggerising around and change back into the captain, NOW. We're off on a little Time travel adventure. Back four thousand years to visit the Egyptian jackal headed god Anubis and see if we can get to the bottom of this story threatening apathy. We've been in the Dole Drums too long. It's because that theiving genius who lives near the Silent Sea has stolen the Aurora Boring Alice."
The crew were shocked.
"We're shocked" they all said "He's stolen the Southern Lights?"
" No, the southern lights are called the Aurora Australis. He stole the northern lights!"
"We have to get them back."
With that the Good ship finally had a purpose and feeling very frisky without all the extraneous cargo she darted through the space time continuum to the Nile River. The year 2560 BC....

.....was a good year, no wars, no elcetions and the taxation department had been vapourised, in fact it was this time in the mellenium that.........

the hamsters first landed their strange pyramid shaped spaceships on the plateau near Giza only to find absolutely no supply of fuel for the return trip.
Hieronomous hamster looked at his first mate and said...

"Looks like we might be stuck here for a while, Number One. You'd better find something for the crew to occupy their time with. You know how much trouble a crew full of bored hamsters can cause!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" Lieutenant Commander Hugo Hamster saluted and went off for a bit of a think.

The scheme he came up with had all the hallmarks of a major cock-up from Day One. He set up a committee of hamsters from the different divisions of the giant space-voyaging pyramid ships. The committee's task was to build a statue of a hamster to mark their presence in the Nile Valley.

Hamsters - especially those of the type that travel intergalactically - are capable of great energy and alacrity when fully engaged on a project. Consequently, it didn't take them long to complete an enormous statue of a hamster. It was set upon a plinth adjacent to the largest of the spacecraft. The hamster statue was depicted in a crouching stance, its front paws neatly placed in front of its chest, its head raised in an alert posture.

Regrettably, whilst intergalactic hamsters are capable of great energy and alacrity, they are also capable of disagreement amongst themselves on virtually any subject in the known universe and beyond. Consequently, the committee failed to agree at any point on a precise design for the huge statue. Various parts of it had been shielded from other parts during its construction while each was worked on by the different groups. Not a hamster involved had any aesthetic or creative talent.

It was with a sense of genuine curiosity - tinged with apprehension - that the CO, Hieronymus Hamster, presided at the unveiling ceremony.

He pulled the cord that released the great shroud-like cover that had thus far shielded the statue from general view. The cover fell away to reveal the full extent of the hamster committee's efforts.

Towering above the assembled hamsters was an edifice the like of which had previously never been seen.

Hieronymus gazed at it open-mouthed.

The first mate looked at him and said:

"So what d'you think, sir? Quite something, isn't it?"

"Oh yes, Number One! It's something, all right. Various somethings spring to mind: cock-up, for example - appalling mess; hugely ill-conceived pile of tat, for example. But actually, the word that springs most clearly to mind is a word my dear old dad used to utter if he dropped something on his foot. Yes - that's it. It's a bloody great SPHINX!!!"

And thus it was, Dear Reader, that an ill-conceived and badly-executed statue of an enormous hamster came to occupy a dominant position in the Nile Valley- and to receive a name that no-one ever truly understood - until now, that is ....

it is called the Sphinxter!

Anyway, Hieronymous Hamster said to his crew (with only a little facetiousness)
"Well done lads! Now that we have that enormous structure to occupy/ divert the attention of the natives of this planet, or at least keep them guessing for a few of their millenia, we can hide the truth about our strange spaceships and live like gods amongst these primitives."
"But Sir, why?"
Hieronymous sighed, rubbed his paw on his forehead in a gesture of condescending patience and explained
"Because we're out of fuel you ignoramus! We either settle back and wait the 4 or 5 thousand of this planet's years for them to advance enough to invent nuclear power or we teach them now."
"But sir, how are we going to make them listen to us?"
""We'll just convince them that we are gods."
"Captain... interrupted Lt. Commander Hugo Hamster " Why don't we send out a call for help?"
Hieronymous decided that would be good for morale so he sent a few Hamsters to set up the electronic sign that hamsters used throughout the galaxy to flag down passers by. ( Dear reader You will be familiar with this sort of sign but probably didn't realise it was a sign. Humans call it the Aurora Borealis or the northern lights. And it was still there until recently and is the reason that the good ship VLGI was on this particular mission.)
Anyway, while his crew were setting up their distress signal, lots of primitive humans were gathering around the strange sights on the Giza plateau saying...

"What the fox hat?"

Or, at least, that's what they seemed to be saying.

Dogsbreath, standing on the poop deck of the good ship Very Little Gravitas Indeed as it materialised out of the mist on the waters of the Nile, was quite moved that the locals had noticed his headgear.

"See?" he said to Frontbottom. "This hat attracts attention everywhere!"

Frontbottom....

realised that Dogsbreath was wrong.
" Doggie ole mate, they're not looking at you! See, they are pointing at those incredibly new looking pyramids."
Dogsbreath was quite taken aback. He said " I'm....

offended, how could those piles of stone look better than me???......

"We-e-ell," said Frontbottom. "Whilst your appearance might pass muster at the Cowpony's Buttocks - or whatever your local hostelry is called ..."

"That's the Cowcockies' Arms, mate." Dogsbreath gritted his teeth.

"Yerss, well, as I was saying. Your apparel may well meet the dress standards there, as it were. But you have to admit that a battered kilt, a plastic handbag doing admittedly sterling service as a sporran, a white singlet and a rather baroque fur hat is an unusual combination. Not to put too fine a point on it. Old chap." Frontbottom blew sharply into his pipe and produced a cheerful toot.

If this was intended to mollify his companion it wasn't so much a failure as a bloody disaster. Dogsbreath drew breath. Twice. This enabled him to give vent to a long speech. The speech started thus:-

"Listen, ya pommy drongo! ..."

and ended several minutes later with:-

".... so keep ya flamin' fashion commentary to ya bloody self!"

Frontbottom was unmoved. He ....

didn't need to elucidate this point however, his unmoving demeanor stated that quite obviously enough. What he did say was
"That may well be true old chap, however it does not for one millisecond change the fact that those people have not even noticed your hat, sporran or shoes. They are obviously preoccupied with those rather conspicuous erections that have recently appeared on their skyline.
Now where do you suppose those hamsters have gotten to.
It was a very astute observation, for along the taffrail there was not a hamster to be seen. This was quite unnerving for the crew, who gave voice to their consternations saying
" we're...