the camel's back

While walking over to the South Bank, I was asked by GMTV (represented by a short blonde and a tall cameraman) if I watched Dancing On Ice. 'No', I said. Then I added: 'Only on Harry Hill', but they'd lost interest by then. They should have known, shouldn't they? Who are you going to get on that bridge except foreign tourists and people who are interested in only the very finest examples of the culture? Now if they'd asked about Deal Or No Deal...

One thing I have noticed watching TV recently, is people having difficulty with the idea of straws. First I saw the villain in a Jean-Claude Van Damme film telling JCVD that if he wasn't careful he'd be 'eating out of a straw'. Out of a straw? Through a straw I can understand, but out of a straw, that sounds tricky, and would it even be worth it, the amount of nourishment you could squeeze into the average straw? Unless it was some sort of super-condensed space food, or just a giant straw... But there was no suggestion of this in the script.

Then, a couple of days later, and I can't remember what programme it was on, someone was commiserating with someone else for picking 'the short end of the straw'. Now come on, that whole straw is short, isn't it? It's not just one end. It's both ends. And the middle.

So what is it about straws? Are they a concept that's hard to grasp? Hence the phrase 'clutching at straws'? Or does 'clutching at straws' mean that they're easy to grasp, because straws are what you clutch at when you can't get the whole thing? Then again, clutching at straws doesn't sound easy, does it? Christ, now I'm confused. Straws really are tricky customers. Hence the phrase 'the last straw'.