This footling stuff is only of any interest because it is about the queen.

ECONOMIST: Why the queen has to be seen to be believed

Treasury traditionalists may regard these apparently footling changes as a shocking breach of time-honoured tradition.

ECONOMIST: Taxation

Georgia is a clannish country in which doing favours for friends is regarded as a moral obligation far more so than obeying footling little rules.

ECONOMIST: Edward Shevardnadze, Georgia��s foxy president

By footling round with centrifuges and liquid nitrogen they were reducing food to a set of mental hurdles, as though there weren't already enough traffic lights and zebra crossings in life.

ECONOMIST: Santi Santamar��a

The advances can seem footling.

ECONOMIST: Bagehot