STUCK BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

Do I give up drinking completely or do I just not bother buying any Christmas presents this year? It’s a seasonal dilemma that the credit crunch has thrust upon even more of us this year. We find ourselves in the unfortunate position of being stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea.
But hold your horses. Before you get all religious and start praying for some kind of financial salvation you’d be well advised to read on.
Yes you’ve got it. We aren’t actually talking about Old Nick here. It’s another one of those damn nautical sayings.
The ‘devil’ was in fact the name given to the longest seam of a ship. It ran from stem to stern along the beam that supports the gun deck. The seams were sealed by packing rope and tar into the gaps. You can imagine how it must have felt doing that job from a suspended plank. Precarious positioning indeed and literally what the phrase originally meant.
“Stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea”