The FT's Lucy Kellaway is probably my favourite columnist. This is because of two simple virtues:

a. She knows what she's talking about
b. She writes very nicely

Her column on a Monday comes as such a relief if you've spent the previous day sighing and tutting at the columnists in the Sundays (as I usually have).

Her piece today is on a subject she excels at: business language. Entitled "Management metaphors are out for the count", it takes apart all those ridiculous metaphors beloved by management gurus: management as sport, management as music, management as animal behaviour. Of a recent article in the Harvard Business Review that adopts boxing as a metaphor for management, she writes:

"The HBR doesn’t mention any of the things about boxing that immediately come to my mind when I think of it. In boxing, you get beaten to a pulp – which must ring a bell with anyone who is now working on the economic front line. In boxing, you are quite likely to wind up with brain damage if you go on doing it for long enough – and, if things get much worse in the economy, this too may come to ring a bell."

The rest is just as good. Read it here.