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Ferran’s ragged butterfly Blanche looks at first glance as if she might be blown to smithereens with one gust of Stanley’s ferocious lung power.

We do, however, recognize something new and important, and we need to trust it, not blast it to smithereens, leaving us more shaken than stirred.

A party pulverised to smithereens after its years in coalition with the Conservatives is back and back big time - and they can’t quite believe it.

“That was how Hollywood was able to dramatize the impact of the bomb and the fact that we had the power to blow ourselves to smithereens.”

For countries, the EU and Gulf States in particular, which have seen their previous investments - hospitals, schools and universities - blown to smithereens over the past three months, it is hardly a tempting prospect.