fuddy-duddy

Richard Martin says: "It was the 60s, the government wanted to be modern and thrusting, it wanted to get rid of old fuddy-duddy stuff."

Few Britons now recoil at the prospect of King Charles III, even if he sometimes seems more a fuddy-duddy uncle than a national patriarch.

“She’s always very smartly turned out but appropriate for her age. Not so fuddy-duddy as she used to be.’

He is no longer the fuddy-duddy who loses at golf to enhance relations with a business client, and drinks too much, but an unlikely spy who takes his frustrations out on his family.

Second comes the flash of unexpected delight — surprise that an old fuddy-duddy cocktail your grandparents drank could taste so good.