"ambulance at the bottom of a cliff" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_text": "A variation on the Joseph Malins' 1895 poem \"The ambulance down in the valley,\" where the need for an ambulance would be removed by a fence on the cliff.",
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
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      },
      "expansion": "ambulance at the bottom of a cliff",
      "name": "head"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
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          "parents": [],
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          "ref": "1994, “Yes”, in The Holy Bible, performed by Manic Street Preachers:",
          "text": "Funny place for the social, for the insects to start caring / Just an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
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              39,
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          "ref": "1999 September 14, Nick Davies, “Crisis, crisis, crisis: the state of our schools”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "A school with a poor intake is like an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff: sometimes, it can pick up the children and patch up the damage; most of the time, it's too late.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
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          "ref": "2002 April 29, Julie Middleton, “Degree cheats graduate to big time”, in The New Zealand Herald:",
          "text": "But such a service could be seen as an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A futile or post factum answer to a problem."
      ],
      "id": "en-ambulance_at_the_bottom_of_a_cliff-en-noun-opQH0c8B",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
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        [
          "futile",
          "futile"
        ],
        [
          "post factum",
          "post factum"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative, derogatory) A futile or post factum answer to a problem."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "too little, too late"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "figuratively"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Joseph Malins"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "ambulance at the bottom of a cliff"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "A variation on the Joseph Malins' 1895 poem \"The ambulance down in the valley,\" where the need for an ambulance would be removed by a fence on the cliff.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun"
      },
      "expansion": "ambulance at the bottom of a cliff",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "too little, too late"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
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            [
              70,
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            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1994, “Yes”, in The Holy Bible, performed by Manic Street Preachers:",
          "text": "Funny place for the social, for the insects to start caring / Just an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              39,
              73
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1999 September 14, Nick Davies, “Crisis, crisis, crisis: the state of our schools”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "A school with a poor intake is like an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff: sometimes, it can pick up the children and patch up the damage; most of the time, it's too late.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              39,
              73
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2002 April 29, Julie Middleton, “Degree cheats graduate to big time”, in The New Zealand Herald:",
          "text": "But such a service could be seen as an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A futile or post factum answer to a problem."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
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          "futile",
          "futile"
        ],
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          "post factum",
          "post factum"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(figurative, derogatory) A futile or post factum answer to a problem."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "figuratively"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Joseph Malins"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "ambulance at the bottom of a cliff"
}