take the gilt off the gingerbread

That took the gilt off the gingerbread and the Daimler bumpers.

'It would have taken the gilt off the gingerbread', she said.

The journey by hovercraft took only ten minutes, but waiting for the craft at either end took the gilt off the gingerbread, and anyway, such a visit, for Forbin, was unthinkable.

"It's taken the gilt off the gingerbread and driven prices down," said Ian Kennedy, a dealer who was head of Christie's Old Masters painting department in New York for 16 years.