More Good New Metaphors

...and figures of speech. More here, here, here and here.

Bibley: I'm not a big fan of shows that get all God and "Bibley" on you.

boreathon Chris Campling on modern pop Mar 31 10


Clement Atlee: on the Richter scale of charisma the needle didn’t even flicker. Radio 4 July 10

cultural McCarthyism dividing ethnic music into Frinton versus Clacton (folk v country – it happens all over world)

dampen expectations (please use instead of defuse)

egos: Squads arrived in South Africa “with egos clanking together”. Jonathan Northcroft Indy July 10

foolhardy updating: I braced myself for the whizz-bang terror of a foolhardy contemporary updating (of Oh What a Lovely War!) Daily Telegraph Mar 25

glutinous harmony "There is almost sickening glutinous harmony between me and Dave" on all London-based issues (Mayor Boris Johnson on Crossrail). April 15, 2010

Hell on wheels (Wyatt Earp’s opinion of Wrangell, Alaska)

inadequacy meter: And his fluency in creating agréments in his second passes totally peaks out my inadequacy meter. youtube on pianist Andras Schiff

saltwatery grave [Farmland birds] will be sent to a saltwatery grave [if the land is flooded]. farmer on Countryfile BBC April 11, 2010

Slightly kind of Rasputinesque, yeah. (Derren Brown)

Think tank patois (Matthew Norman)

We’re in the same lane. (schoolboy on Breakfast July 10)