Dear Mary | 16 January 2010

Q. I was invited to a very informal kitchen supper by a friendly neighbour and his wife. It would be just the three of us, and I strolled round there in anticipation of an enjoyable few hours of exchanging indiscretions. My problem is that when I walked into the kitchen I saw an open laptop at one end of the table laid for three — in the fourth place as it were. The screen showed a man I had not met before waving, apparently at me, and raising a glass of wine in my direction. My host boasted that he had just got Skype which would enable us to ‘have dinner’ with this man, another great friend of his, who lives in Johannesburg but who could see us through a camera in the laptop at our end. I must admit I was disappointed by this virtual intrusion. Conversation was buoyant but somehow artificial and we could not gossip. My friend soon tired of the novelty and began making faces at me but we could think of no way of politely disconnecting the friend in South Africa. What should we have done, Mary?

K.J., London SW10

A. The correct protocol is for one person to casually remark that the ‘battery low’ symbol has come up on the laptop and that it needs to be plugged into the mains. Another guest will thereby be prompted to notice that the charger is nowhere to be found and they can’t think where it could be. After a couple more minutes of acting normally a discreet hand can move on to the disconnect button.