The best example I can think of is when a government minister misbehaves (eg is discovered naked in a brothel; writes a shopping list on the back of a confidential paper, and leave in in Tesco's; goes on a cruise and charges it to expenses. You get the idea). The first thing that happens is that he announces that he "has no intention of resigning". And then follows the real kiss of death; the Prime Minster says the minister "has his full support". What chilling words are those, for invariably, the minister resigns within (about) a week.
On the more domestic front, it is the kiss of death:
If I choose, for a (rare) dinner party, to make something that has to be "turned out" of a mould. "Leave until set, and then invert onto a plate", says the recipe, with Delia/Nigella insouciance. The reality: leave until it appears set, and then invert onto the floor (if I don't miss the plate, the thing invariably collapses).
If I splash out on something expensive. It always, always turns up in the sales a week later, at half the price.
If I really, really look forward to a special holiday. It will pour with rain. Always. Even (and especially) in the kind of place where one is told "but it NEVER rains here at this time of year!"
Of course, all these last could just be put down to sod's law (or what my father elegantly called "the law of undesirable conincidences"). But somehow "kiss of death" has more cache.
