Experts are warning that Europe’s emergency crisis metaphor resources may soon run terminally dry, after the economic bloc entered its 12th consecutive quarter of financial unpleasantness.
In April 2009 Europe was already in danger of slipping into an era of unprecedented cliché, as observers exhausted weather-related analogies.
More than three years on, the cyclical nature of the simile markets and a tawdry northern-European summer have seen ‘stormy skies’ and ‘choppy seas’ make an unwelcome comeback.
Efforts to breathe new life into eurozone copy in the intervening months has seen scribblers resort to torturing all manner of Greek Tragedies, and the centenary of the Titanic earlier this year presented something of a sitter.
SPAIN RELIEF? Oh kill me now
In more recent weeks, Cervantes has made a predictable incursion, with Dante expected to make an appearance in leaders across Europe’s chip-wrappers.
One leading chinstroker has even resorted to crowbarring in references to T.S Eliot’s Wasteland, trawled from the recesses of a vague memory of a GCSE English essay and refreshed with a bit of last minute Googling.
Wikipedia is understood to have dedicated extra servers to cater for the influx of desparate searches for scraps of apt colour and erudition to sprinkle over coverage of the crisis.
And as Euro2012-inspired football metaphors have been making regular appearances, EU leaders have circulated a memo warning to treat all coverage of the anticipated Germany v Greece quarterfinal with utmost rhetorical caution.
BM, inspired by an @traynorbrussels twitter-based harrumph
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