50 As Useless As Sayings (The Complete Collection)

The as useless as saying is a small English invention that has never needed updating. You take a thing that failed to do its job, you compare it to an object built for a job it cannot possibly do, and everybody in the room understands you immediately. No cruelty required. The joke lands on the object, not the person holding it.

What follows is fifty of them: the classics that everybody half-remembers, and the specific ones that do the real damage. Specificity is the whole craft here. “Useless” is a shrug; “a chocolate fireguard” is a picture.

Table of Contents

The classics worth knowing

As useless as a chocolate fireguard.
As useless as a rubber crutch.
As useless as a glass fire extinguisher.
As useless as a lead balloon.
As useless as a one-legged stool.
As useless as a screen door on a spaceship.
As useless as a sundial in a cellar.
As useless as a chocolate kettle.
As useless as a wooden anchor.
As useless as a candle in a wind tunnel.

Forty more, for when the classics are taken

As useless as a cardboard life jacket.
As useless as a snorkel on a submarine.
As useless as an inflatable dartboard.
As useless as a fur coat in a sauna.
As useless as a torch with the batteries in backwards.
As useless as a mirror in a coal mine.
As useless as a chocolate radiator.
As useless as brakes on a sledge.
As useless as a lighthouse in a desert.
As useless as a wet match.
As useless as a fire alarm made of paper.
As useless as a paper anchor chain.
As useless as a pocket on a swimming costume.
As useless as a windscreen wiper on a submarine.
As useless as a chair with no legs.
As useless as an unplugged fridge in August.
As useless as a wooden hammer for driving nails into concrete.
As useless as a fish with a bicycle.
As useless as a step ladder in a bungalow.
As useless as a fan heater in a heatwave.
As useless as a shower cap for a bald man.
As useless as a comb in a barbers’ strike.
As useless as a chocolate poker.
As useless as an umbrella made of tissue.
As useless as a sieve for carrying water.
As useless as a bucket with the bottom cut out.
As useless as a key with no teeth.
As useless as a padlock with the shackle sawn off.
As useless as a map with no place names.
As useless as a compass on a magnet factory floor.
As useless as a wristwatch with one hand.
As useless as a clock with no numbers in a job interview.
As useless as a pen with no ink at the passport desk.
As useless as a printer with no paper on deadline day.
As useless as a hairdryer in a downpour.
As useless as a doorbell in a house with no door.
As useless as a burglar alarm that only works indoors.
As useless as a whistle underwater.
As useless as a megaphone in a library.
As useless as a soundproof telephone box.

How to actually use one

Two rules. First, deliver it flat. The as useless as saying is a deadpan form; the moment you sell it with enthusiasm it stops being a comparison and starts being a performance. Second, pick the object nearest to the room you are standing in. A chocolate teapot is the classic, an inflatable dartboard is the connoisseur’s choice, and an ashtray on a motorbike is the poet’s — but a broken kettle in an office that runs on tea beats all three.

If you want more of the family, the original thirty-joke compilation is still the best short version, the foodie edition covers the kitchen in full, and there is the reader-ranked version over at gotlines.com if you would rather see them ranked by strangers than arranged by us.