Dear Mary | 10 January 2009

Q. A friend from university invited my boyfriend and me to stay with her parents in a very grand house over New Year. We were made very welcome, but my boyfriend felt out of his depth in at least one instance and wonders what you would have advised. On New Year’s Day there was a large number of people for lunch. The butler went round the table with a tray of roast beef, offering it to each person in turn to help themselves. The piece my boyfriend tried to take was attached by gristle to a sort of concertina of other slices and when he tried to cut through the gristle the butler did not respond by exerting resistant pressure from underneath the tray but instead slackened his grip so my boyfriend could not cut through. He ended up trying to save face by taking all the attached slices — which was far too big a helping.