An Exercise in Similes and Metaphors

In the following passage, Silly Sally has tried to impress you by using several similes, but the poor girl has got them all wrong. Please correct the similes by changing only one word in each one.

My dad, who's as brave as a baseball is completely different from my brother who's cowardly like a lighthouse. They both eat lots of food because they are as greedy as lampposts but my mum, as wise as an eggcup, tells them that they will soon be as big as daisies if they carry on like scissors. Being tractor-sharp, my dad replied that he'd rather be as fat as an umbrella than spoon-miserable, and Mum gave him a kangaroo-cold look.

Each of the following pictures suggests a standard simile (i.e. one that you might see in an English textbook). Please type the simile in the form as ... as:

Can you think of a couple of metaphors for each of these objects, perhaps inspired by the accompanying pictures?

	A skyscraper
	A tube tunnel

	A vast desert
	An eagle in flight

Metaphors are a bit like jokes. If you explain their meaning out loud, then it rather ruins them. However, I would like you to ignore that advice for once and explain the following metaphors in simple non-metaphorical language:

1. I revamped and rewrote the essay in order to give it a new coat of paint.
   
   
2. Stop building castles in the air. You'll never be an astronaut, or an explorer or any of those other things you dream about.
   

... and finally, a silly poem that I wrote. Please fill in the missing words, so that the rhyming structure of both verses is AABB:

The teacher decided, if you please,
To teach the class some .
As white as , as as grass,
As as rock, as as .

-sharp, jet-, -red,
Battleship- and stone-.
Dull, but it could be worse, of course.
Next time he's teaching them !