Mixed Metaphors Part Five

Watch out for garbled images like these:

bow-tie lips Lionel Shriver Times October 29, 2011 The blue-eyed English rose with the china-white skin and cupid lips Daily Telegraph on Susannah York, 2011 That’s “cupid’s bow” lips.

Berlusconi “forged his road to power” (roads are usually paved)

But America’s Puritanical past casts a strong shadow to this day… middleclasshandbook.co.uk A long shadow – all the way from the 17th century to now.

cool as a cucumber, ripped as celery Catherine Shoard in the Guardian on Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible

David Mellor’s cabinet career unravelled under a barrage of allegations. David Mitchell, Obs Aug 14 11

FTSE directors receiving nearly 50% annual increases in their remuneration packages is, in the long term, a rotten nail in the coffin of future corporate UK. Letter to Times, Oct 2011 (nail in the coffin? Something rotten in the state of Denmark? rotten apple?)

Harold Pinter wrote that "the mistake they make, most of them, is to attempt to determine and calculate the source of the wound. They seek out the gaps between the apparent and the void that hinges on it with all due tautness."

Isn’t that the dance with the devil you have to play? (Hugh Grant’s informant)

mired in intrigue, self-congratulation (Try “full of” or “awash with”.)

Russell Grant is camper than a row of tent pegs – Bruce Forsyth on STCD. That’s “camp as a row of tents”. Tents are in rows in army camps.

simmering tensions erupted into war

the company wants to ascend from the bargain basement and soar with the premium brands – this car is their first stake in the ground. DT Sept 2011, paraphrase

the original price tag has ballooned (the original price has risen)

The Prince of Wales… wrote in glowing terms to the former Libyan dictator, calling for wider ties between the two nations. G Oct 11 (Wider ties were last fashionable in the 70s.)

They have pinned their colours to this dreadful document… G September 14, 2011 (you nail your colours (flag) to the mast (of your ship), you pin your hopes on someone or thing)

the spotlight is a mixed bag Metro Nov 2 11

the thrust of sanitisation creeping into the Premier League product telegraph.co.uk

This is not going to shed me in a good light…

Weaving a terrifying thread of sex and violence, this is brilliant thriller. Val McDermid

What’s driving this dramatic spike?

Who’ll be crowned cream of the baking crop? BBC headline

Yesterday was a momentous day for British journalism and of course the PR industry. We are now sitting on the edge of the biggest scandal ever seen in the media. The ripples will swamp other newspapers. The world's biggest English speaking Sunday tabloid newspaper is dead. Rupert Murdoch's action to try and halt the hurricane sweeping through his empire by taking a butcher's cleaver to his own corporate flesh was a deliberate act of filicide. The outcome is a clear sign that huge tectonic plates are shifting in British newspapers. Murdoch in effect has cut off a financial pit prop to his empire. The News of the World's closure is the equivalent of amputating a gangrenous limb - it saves the BSkyB deal and even the Sun so it's not hyperbole to describe it as the greatest publicity stunt of a generation. Huffington Post July 8, 2011

More mixed metaphors and garbled cliches here, here, here and here.