I felt that one look at Vic's switchblade knife and gimlet gaze would have put Hayley's piddling domestic problems in some kind of reasonable perspective.
Having already lifted rates by nearly five percentage points over the past year—its steepest tightening in four decades—the latest increase of a quarter-point was, in numerical terms, piddling.
By his reckoning, only 8.5% of projects meet their initial estimates on cost and time, and a piddling 0.5% achieve what they set out to do on cost, time and benefits.
He goes number one first thing in the morning, then again in the afternoon, once more in the late afternoon, say 4:00,4:30, depending on his juice intake, and then, a quick piddle before bedtime.