muck about

As Ms Hall was busy draining off the pasta in the sink, her partner of 27 years and their daughter were "mucking about by the back door".

Vickers had claimed the fatal injury was caused accidentally while they were "mucking about", but jurors at Teesside Crown Court found him guilty of murder with a majority verdict.

Simon Vickers, 50, claimed he caused the fatal injury while they were "mucking about" in a "freak accident" but prosecutors at Teesside Crown Court said the wound must have been inflicted deliberately.

But I was mucking about with this song in my studio at home — this song by the Montgolfier Brothers, “Between Two Points” — and the sentiments of the lyrics just were not working for me.

The material doesn’t want sophisticated adults mucking about in it or, worse, gentling its hard edges for commercial consumption.