(entered for 01.01.06) (Sorry, I was sick over New Years and missed some entries.)

Meaning: something that detracts from something else. Definitions and uses.
Rewrite 1: a fly in the omelet
Rewrite 2: a mark on the page
Rewrite 3: a scratchn1a on the bumper
Rewrite 4: too much salt in the pudding

Comment: This cliché replaces a duplicate that I just discovered. It had become a fly in the ointment of this weblog, so I expunged it.

More reading about clichés
What I found when I googled “clichés”:
• Downpour of Media Cliches Threatens to Flood Nation: (1995) “Once you decode the main cliches, the torrents of media blather will roll off you like water off a duck's back.”