I just read your post again, Hai, and I was wondering about the slightly mixed metaphor:<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">and so the sharks came snapping around the boat for their pound of flesh and stripped the carcass clean</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>The pound of flesh is (i'm sure everyone knows) from Shakespeare's "The Merchant Of Venice" - and is an appropriate metaphor given the circumstances.<br/><br/>But did you know where the sharks around the boat stripping the carcase clean is from?<br/><br/>A favourite book of mine as a child,that my dad used to read as a bedtime story, a short novel called "The old man And The sea" by Ernest Hemingway (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Sea). The old man catches a huge marlin and straps it to the side of his boat, but as she is heading back to land with it, the sharks circle and strip the carcase bare, leaving only the head, backbone and dorsal fin.<br/><br/>I just had to post that, because your post reminded me of what is a really poignant story.<br/><br/>I think at some point Angela is going to come out with my favourite Shakespeare quote - especially if Beth says something about lawyers wanting a pound of flesh...<br/><br/>Henry VI Pt 2, Act 4 , Scene 2, vv 72-78<br/><br/>DICK<br/><br/>The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.<br/><br/>CADE<br/><br/>Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable<br/>thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should<br/>be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled<br/>o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings:<br/>but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal<br/>once to a thing, and I was never mine own man<br/>since.