Q. At a recent party I was delighted to find my hosts had put me next to one of their most high-profile guests. We had never met before but they knew how much I had to say to this excellent woman. I was consequently dismayed when she failed to — or rather, was unable to — turn. Her first interlocutor, a somewhat physically overbearing character, talked to her with almost pathological intensity throughout all the courses. The dinner came to an end and she and I had been unable to exchange one word. We had been 20 tables of ten. Had one of our hosts been at our table he or she would have slapped the offender down, but neither could see what was going on. Fortunately the old friend on my right was able to include me in a three-way conversation but that was not the point. How, without being uncivil like my rival, could I have prised this fascinating woman away from him?
— H.T.,
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