Incoming email with mixed metaphor and Other creatures news:
Stanley Johnson, Boris pater, on Sky News this morning re Brexit deal: “We’re barking up the wrong horse …”
From GodDaughter2’s pater Tony, to whom thanks. For the benefit of anyone reading this who never did Latin, pater means Dad.
Stanley Johnson is an I’m A Celebrity celebrity, it would seem. Or was.
There ought to be an equal and opposite response to this, along the lines of “riding the wrong tree”, but that doesn’t sound quite right. “Jumping trees”? Still not sounding right.
As for Brexit, I personally hope that if Boris is the next PM, he doesn’t jump trees. And I think we can all agree that Prime Minister May has been barking up the wrong horse ever since she got the job.
Flogging a dead tree?
Perfect.
Restrain yourself. You have a bottomless pit hanging above your head, after all.
Nice one.
Talking of hanging over your head, maybe a Sword of Damocles could somehow cut the Gordian Knot.
“Flogging a dead tree” perfectly describes the more trad sort of magazine, that still insists on being printed. “Dead tree” being a phrase already in existence.