Today I thought I’d examine a couple of hyperbolic metaphors on the basis of their being literally true and see where that got me, scientifically. I mean, what is a hyperbolic metaphor worth if science can’t say something about it, really? Check this out.

‘Enough food to sink a battleship’

How much food would sink a battleship? We have to suppose it
means enough food to overload the vessel until it sinks, but that doesn’t
define a figure because battleships have been built to all sorts of displacements, from
the 10,000-ton British jobs of the late nineteenth century through to the
70,000-ton Japanese monsters of the Second World War. Obviously the weight
needed to sink one will vary.

What’s less obvious is that even if we defined a

I posted this poem a year or so ago, and I think it bears re-posting again now. In fact, I think I should post it repeatedly every year until everybody understands the situation most of these people find themselves in through no fault of their own.

The first time she ever set eyes on the sea,

She was forty seven.

It was a long road there.

She set off with little enough,

And arrived with much less.

She had a home, once.

A house,

In a well-to-do area of the city.

Life was good.

But fear came,

In the form of bullets, shells and bombs.

Once, gas.

Then everyone lived in fear.

Her house is rubble, now.

Memories and possessions buried,

Alongside her husband.

Alongside her daughter.

Alongside her middle son.

Her hands are scarred from the digging.

For weeks,

Her palms were raw and bloody,

from blocks of masonry,