Spitting in a pot to boil it would be a waste of time and energy and would likely never succeed, as well as being a frivolous and senseless activity which achieves no purpose in the first place, hence the term spitboiling.
"My mind is made up; you're just spitboiling trying to convince me."
"We haven't made any progress. We need to stop spitboiling and either change our approach or give up."
"Is there a reason you're doing that or are you spitboiling?"
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. PenguinBooks,1992. p. 38)