faff about

English

Verb

faff about (third-person singular simple present faffs about, present participle faffing about, simple past and past participle faffed about)

1. (intransitive, chiefly UK) To waste time; spend time idly.

   She faffed about so much, she never got to eat her breakfast.

   I decided to stop faffing about and get some work done.

   • 2011 December 15, Felicity Cloake, “How to cook the perfect nut roast”, in Guardian‎^[1]:

     It's a shame; not only are nuts quite ridiculously nutritious but, as anyone who's ever shelled out (sorry) for a tiny glass of pistachios in a pub will know, they're a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. But although I happen to have a soft spot for nut roast – an option often preferable to the meat that emerged from the school kitchen – it seems I'm in a cranky minority. A request for recipe recommendations was met with a polite silence on Twitter: vegetarianism, apparently, has moved on a bit. You don't see Yotam Ottolenghi faffing about with nut roasts, do you? But I'm determined to revive the fortunes of this much-maligned classic. After all, Christmas isn't Christmas without a luxury nut selection.