He was brought in to fill the gap left by the departure of George Ford for Bath – Leicester's opponents on Sunday – when Ford tired of playing second fiddle to the man he could well replace in the England team when Flood moves to France in the summer, probably to Toulouse, although that is yet to be confirmed.
Apple gets it in the neck ("When you buy an album on iTunes you're renting music rather than buying it; you're getting the equivalent of an IOU"), as does YouTube, for letting major artists fiddle their viewing figures.
A series of increasingly eye-catching screen roles followed, including Ada in the BBC's Bleak House, a guest shot on Doctor Who, the best friend in an ITV drama of another Austen, Northanger Abbey (playing second fiddle to Felicity Jones), and that stellar Seagull at the Royal Court, also in 2007.
For a man who "writes like a two-year-old", "can't spell" and is too "completely and utterly disorganised" to "fiddle taxes", he has been surprisingly articulate on Twitter so far.
They tend to fiddle around the edges, which even then brings moans from people who do notice the differences.
Throughout much of her career, Jane went along as second fiddle to the interviewer, often being squeezed in for a few minutes at the beginning or at the end.
Bridie Staunton, who ran a hairdressing business and occasionally played fiddle in Irish showbands, rarely had such times with her only child, Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton.
Those people and the thousands of others working in similarly precarious and punishing conditions make the garments we wear and the electronic goods we fiddle about with.
It should also be stressed that he was not even allowed to pick his own teams but had to play second fiddle to a so-called selection committee made up of football club directors.
But Hopcraft, a professional on the hunt, tracked it every fiddle of the way.
Many also thought that the decision constituted very shabby treatment of Messerer, who had done more than anyone to establish the troupe's artistic credentials and was now, it seemed, going to have to play second fiddle.
