MAD, BAD BUT NEW?

I've just read a book review in the Sunday Times, specifically of a book called 'Dear Lupin: Letters to a Wayward Son."  At one point the reviewer says the author (Roger Mortimer), "had excellent material to work with.  The delightful Mortimer family all seem to have been as mad as balloons."

"As mad as balloons."  Has anyone else ever heard or used this expression before?  Of course we all know, "As mad as a March hare" and equally, but less usually, "As mad as a cut snake" (for some reason often used to describe, not necessarily unkindly, an Irishman or woman).  But, "As mad as balloons?"

What sort of balloons, I wonder?  Are we talking of those massed bunches of fairground balloons, made of foil, filled with helium and shaped as fish, dogs or characters from Disney or manga?  Or are we talking about the common or garden balloon-shaped balloons, the staple of birthday parties long gone - filled with gasping breaths (resorted to inevitably when the balloon pump, always bought new for the special occasion, turned out in current political phraseology to be 'unfit for purpose')?

Certainly these old-fashioned inflatables could engender a sort of madness (and I am not talking about the budgerigar voice resulting from inhaling helium).  I remember long ago a birthday party (mine) in my rooms at Oxford when I and other strong-lunged rowers, blew up a gross or two balloons in the hope that, under cover of the shifting, squeaking latex we could get our hands, albeit briefly, on the shifting, squeaking girls invited to enliven the occasion.

Actually, the plan worked well but not for long.  As often happens at such student events, the booze ran freely and ran out quickly, requiring me - both as host and pretty much the only man in funds at the time - to pop out for more supplies.

The word 'pop' was apposite.  As I returned, the noise through the windows of balloon after balloon being intentionally burst brought to mind descriptions of the guns of the First World War when heard from Kent if the wind was in the east.  Suffice it to say that the guests were having a 'blast', one long-remembered but I have to say that, for a moment at least, I failed to see the funny side.

I was, in James Hawes's newly-minted phrase in 'A White Merc with Fins', MAF (As 'Mad as Fuck').