fiddling

The playing of music on a fiddle.

The act of fidgeting.

Tweaking; manipulation.

[W]e, her doctors […] seemed powerless to prevent [side-effects], despite all our reassurances, and all our fiddlings and manipulations with the dosage[…]

Was it deliberate that the first week of October 1961 was chosen to conduct a national survey of passenger usage? Why October of all months, when the holiday season was over and families back at work and at school? Was this a fiddling of the figures to make an unfair case against rail-dependent resorts such as those in the West Country, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire, where previously overloaded summer services would now only have a handful of locals on board?

Of petty or trivial importance; footling

It was a fiddling little fault, but ultimately proved disastrous.