0 to be in a situation where it is very difficult to decide what to do, usually because both of your two choices of action would cause problems:
Derbyshire county council is placed in something of a cleft stick in relation to applications that it receives.
They calculated very shrewdly—we had better face this—that they had got both political parties in a cleft stick.
My constituents and the young man found themselves in a cleft stick.
He said he was in a cleft stick.
It seems to me that he may find himself in a cleft stick.
This means that they are completely tied to the one merchant, absolutely in a cleft stick.
However, in those days communications were by means of a message carried in a cleft stick and the carriers ran along the roads.
On that matter we have been in something of a cleft stick.
