Does anyone have favourite similes, metaphors or other comparisons? At Primary School we had an excellent teacher of English, Miss Googe – as remarked on an earlier thread, the names of good teachers stay with you. She introduced us to some basic rhetoric, though we didn’t know it was that, and I still recall being charmed at the thought of “a line of pylons striding up the hillside”.

This simile from Terry Pratchett struck me as original:

“…as self-centred as a gyroscope…”

A cleverly turned phrase, if you’ll forgive the pun. Has it been used before I wonder?