Rare Praise.

I was reading today about an interview a British politician gave on a political TV programme during which she talked about whether Trump should be allowed into the UK and whether Theresa May had been wrong to offer him a full state visit. It didn’t surprise me that her views largely accorded with mine, but what did surprise me was the language she used. She called Trump:

An asteroid of awfulness that has fallen on this world.

It has to be said that a purist might take issue with her knowledge of celestial bodies since, as I understand it, an asteroid is a chunk of rock flying footloose and fancy-free through the cosmos. If it skims the earth’s atmosphere and disintegrates it becomes a meteor. If it manages to get through and falls to earth it is then known as a meteorite.

Well now, for a start I might be wrong; I'm no expert on the lexicography of celestial bodies. But even if I’m not wrong, it would perhaps be an unnecessary example of nit picking to insist on correction. An asteroid that has spent a few million years being an asteroid is still one in all but name when it makes a big hole in the ground somewhere near Maryland and threatens the existence of civilisation as we know it. So let’s forget the mere matter of precise vocabulary and concentrate on what’s important to me.

Here is a politician not only agreeing with me, but doing so in a form which is concise and uses both metaphor and a hint of alliteration for effect. That’s unusual, that’s what makes it a red letter day, and that’s why I mention it on my blog. When was the last time I said anything complimentary about a politician?