APAD: A finger in every pie
Meaning:
To be active in many things, often with the implication that the person is
overactive to the point of being a busy body
Background:
This old saying presumably originated with kitchen visitors who couldn't resist
testing the food by sticking a finger into it, and licking said finger.
Shakespeare used it in Henry VIII, in which the Duke of Buckingham refers to
Cardinal Wolsey, saying... "The devil speed him! no man's pie is freed From
this ambitious finger".
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I first heard a reference in the movie The Shawshank Redemption.
[Norton's done for the day and with a smile handed Andy a pink bakery box.]
Norton: You want the rest of this? Woman can't bake worth shit.
Andy: Thank you, sir.
[The next scene when Andy and Red were chatting while working in the library.
Red was finishing off the pie.]
Red: "He's got his finger in a lot of pies, from what I hear."
Andy: "What you hear isn't half of it. He's got scams you haven't even dreamed
of. Kickbacks on his kickbacks. There's a river of dirty money running through
this place."