Trying to put a brake on a canoe: 1. Embarking on something utterly futile. 2. Hilarious idea that a watercraft can be halted by a ground-based technology; another in a long line of metaphors from stressed out executives attempting the impossible. (see Nailing a jelly to the wall, trying to: Banana, stabbing a seal with a; Grasping at fog)

Foreshadow: 1. Be a warning or indication of (a future event). 2. Now bastardised as a verb roughly meaning to provide an early glimpse of, or introduction to, as in “Brad, could you foreshadow the presentation to the client while I plug in the laptop?”

” When you multiply bullshit with bullshit, you don’t get a bit more bullshit – you get bullshit squared.”

Rory Sutherland, Alchemy: the surprising power of ideas that don’t make sense.

Summary of the book here.