[John Whitworth]

I can't remember this one before, but obviously some can.

No. 2805: cringeworthy


It’s time for toe-curlingly bad analogies again (up to eight each). Here are a couple of corkers to inspire you, courtesy of Bill Greenwell and George Simmers, from the last time we set this challenge: ‘She spoke as throatily as if a frog and its family had got into her throat and smoked a few packets of Peter Stuyvesant before growing claws and scratching at the inside of her thorax’ (BG); ‘Her manner became so suddenly grim it was as though she had injected all of Aberdeen directly into a vein’ (GS). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 3 July.

[George Simmers]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

I can't remember this one before, but obviously some can.

It was two years ago. Maybe it's a bit soon for a repeat, but these are quite fun to make up.

[John Whitworth]

George, your one sounds a bit like P G Wodehouse. Or son of P G Wodehouse anyway. In other words good not deliberately bad.

Her smile was as sudden and elusive as a cruising flasher on a murky day in Margate.
It was as surprising as Nigel Farage at an Anti-smoking Europhiles' Teetotal Dinner.
The steak was bloody rare like a cheerful exponent of climate-change.
She was as cloying, sweet and wicked as a deep-fried Mars Bar.
He was as ill- favoured and as impossible to ignore as a dog turd in a swimming pool.
Just a whisper small, secret and importunate as a young nun's fart in the confessional.
She gave a laugh as dark and dirty as an old paedo's mackintosh.
She looked as thin and desperate as a vegetarian vampire after a hard night.
The play was as slight, slow and ultimately disappointing as a pensioner's hard-won erection.
My delight was fast, fleeting and futile like a boy's first botched performance in the bike sheds.

You are right. It is pleasantly addictive. But these surely need tarting up a bit. Is that better?

The Mona Lisa's smile is as shockingly sudden and elusive as the Hitchcockian image of a cruising flasher working a crowded pier at four o'clock of a murky afternoon in Margate.

UKIP's success has been as frankly surprising as would be the You Tube image of their blessed leader, gagging, gurning and swaying at an Anti-smoking Liberal Democrats' Teetotal Dinner.

My steak was as bloody rare as a cheerfully optimistic exponent of man-made climate-change.

Lying back, naked and exhausted in my personal jacuzzi, my Parisian mistress seemed to me as cloying, sweet and wicked as a deep-fried Mars Bar.

Peter Lorre looked, satisfyingly and as usual, as starkly ill-favoured and impossible to ignore as a slow-bobbing dog turd in a swimming pool.

Monroe conversed in True Love's whispers, as small, secret and importunate as a young nun's fart lost in the tall, looming shadows of the confessional.

Walter Matthau presents to his admirers a face as crumpled, dark and dirty as an old paedo's brown mackintosh.

Mia Farrow looked, as always, as spectre thin and desperate as a vegetarian vampire after a hard night.

Harold Pinter's whole oeuvre is as slight, slow and ultimately disappointing as a futile, frotting pensioner's hard-won erection.

A poet's delight should be as fast, fleeting and entirely useless as a frantic boy's first botched performance in a dank, dark, cobwebby corner behind the bike sheds.

[Roger Slater]

He punched me harder than a Muhammad Ali vampire who had just drunk a gallon of Joe Louis's blood after receiving a transfusion from Sugar Ray Leonard.


He was stupider than Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking combined are smart.

[Rob Stuart]

Careful, gents, or Dan Brown will be nicking some of these.

[Adrian Fry]

Geoff had been neglecting his personal hygiene, rather as the literary establishment had been neglecting the later novels of Nottingham based author Stanley Middleton.

[Rob Stuart]

The rain on their faces felt as wet as soup.

The music in the pub was as loud as Brian Blessed being spayed with a shovel during a nuclear war.

[Adrian Fry]

She emitted a sound somewhere between a laugh and a shriek, as if a cockerel in a wind tunnel was watching Laurel and Hardy with its head while its rear end was being mauled by a fox.

[Brian Allgar]

She shimmied into the room like one of those dames in Raymond Chandler, wearing lipstick as lasciviously red as the Pope’s shoes on a mouth that, like a mid-west tornado, looked as if it was ready to engulf anything it encountered.

[John Whitworth]

Brian, that is awesome. There's nothing for it. I shall have to kill you AS WELL.