Similes: Like What?

Simile, and the world similes with you, but I never metaphor I didn't like.

like a haunted tree (Charlie Brooker on John Kerry) 

The streetcars "sounded like someone sawing in half a knight in full armour". (Florence King)
all over the place like a mad woman’s knitting
as tangled as a spaghetti cardigan (PG Wodehouse)
as uneasy as a cat near water.
black as the Earl of Hell’s knickers (The Rev. Tony Wheeler)

brighter than a thousand suns

fit to make a weasel scream (The Rev. Tony Wheeler)

flash as a rat with a gold tooth
He didn’t look like a cat in a roomful of sofas.
hotter than the hinges of Hell

I once bought some spelt scones that tasted like the pillars of the M62 link road near Prestwich (Polly Mortimer)

like a door slamming in Hell
like a llama surprised in the bath (Churchill on de Gaulle)

like being stoned to death with popcorn (Jim Bergerac on New Age drivel, in an episode written by Robert Banks Stewart)
like being shot to death with popcorn. (Nancy Banks Smith on royal soap The Palace. Banks Smith? Banks Stewart? Could there possibly be a link???)

like a deer in the headlights

like being trapped in a Past Times catalogue (Guardian May 7, 2004)

Sue sounded like some feminist with a stick up her butt throughout the whole episode (of the anime Fantastic Four)
The Rosicrucians "are about as secret as margarine". (Fortean Times, May 09)
Listening to Julie Andrews was like being hit over the head with a greetings card.
The motorway traffic screamed like a knife across the throat. (Nancy Banks Smith)
He writhed like a salted snail. (Nancy Banks Smith)

Lackadaisical or supernumerary person was as much use as:
a barbed wire garter
a chocolate teapot
a fifth wheel
a horse in a boat
a mink-lined bathtub

Futile or impossible activity was like:
bringing sand to the beach
herding cats
knitting with fog
making ropes of sand
nailing jelly to the ceiling
plaiting soap/fog
tightening the screws/rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic
trying to catch a falling knife