Ultimately, it's not the wattage but Dante's lustro sopra that we yearn for — God's grandeur flaming out "like shining from shook foil".
There would be no danger of going into orbit at that velocity, or of flaming up like an Apollo space capsule.
For eating in at cafe tables, there are Bavarian beers (some on draft) and wines, to accompany bratwurst, hot dogs, "flaming pies" (like the Alsatian open-face bacon tart), quiches, sandwiches, salads and soups.
After dinner, our waitress shed her shoes and did a fire dance, spinning flaming torches like an Ole Miss baton-twirler gone loco, as the kitchen staff provided the music on congas and bongos.
The closing pages of A Christmas Carol, with their child-sized turkey and flaming pudding "like a speckled cannon-ball", display not only a fuzzy Victorian sentimentality but a belief in the virtue of feasting as an expression of love.
And yet, having watched how Republicans react to Mr Obama over the past year, I'm pretty sure that while Democrats and some independents might see this sort of language as moderate and conciliatory, conservatives find it even more infuriating than a blistering denunciation of reactionary GOP corruption by a flaming liberal like Elizabeth Warren.
Those who read the tabloids regularly are used to the tired ol' story of a child actor flaming out like a roman candle with drugs and alcohol, perhaps in Peter Robbin's case it just took an extra 45 years to manifest itself.
Those who read the tabloids regularly are used to the tired old story of a child actor flaming out like a roman candle with drugs and alcohol, perhaps in Peter Robbin's case it just took an extra 45 years to manifest itself.
The serene features in the Holbein portrait have been replaced by a reptilian mask; a flaming apparition bursts, Athena-like, from Anne's skull.
