Q. For over 23 years I have rented a beat on a South Ayrshire river. For the last six years the proprietor’s wife has cooked for my party, and her food is delicious. Since the beginning of this arrangement I have paid her a fixed sum without an invoice. This year, to my surprise, at the end of the week, her husband handed me a letter itemising the cooking costs with a hefty 30 per cent increase in the price. There was no prior notification of this increase, but I paid the account. The proprietor and his wife have become good friends, and I do not wish to upset them. How do you suggest I write to them explaining that this is not the correct way to do things and if the cook wanted an increase, it should have been mentioned ab initio when I made the booking?
Name and address withheld
A. Of course the couple should not have larded on the extra charge without prior notification, but in the current climate it would be inadvisable for you to rock the boat. You did well to see no increase for six years and you must consider the loyalty of the proprietor and his wife. In letting the beat to you for over 23 years, rather than letting corporate days for absurd amounts, they may have been forgoing substantial sums. The 30 per cent increase probably reflects only a small percentage of what they have missed out on in funny money from the City.
Q. I met a man at a dinner party and we arranged that I would take him to a gallery opening to which I had been invited a few days later. He suggested that he would take me out to dinner in a rather expensive restaurant afterwards. I quite fancied him until the moment when the bill came and I offered, out of politeness, to split it with him and he accepted! Was this not very bad behaviour, Mary? I would not have gone to such an expensive restaurant if I had known I had to pay. How could I have gracefully retracted my offer?
T. H-D., London SW
A. I happen to have some background to this incident and I am able to inform you that the man concerned was confused by your offer to split the bill. He interpreted it as code for ‘I don’t fancy you. We are just like brother and sister, each paying our own way.’ Being shy, he accepted your offer as he was embarrassed to have been ‘rejected’, as he saw it, by you. In order gracefully to retract your offer you could have stared at your bank card and then at him before saying, ‘Actually, on second thoughts, I insist — that you pay!’ then issuing a peal of girly laughter.
Q. A friend of mine has recently bought 200 acres in Somerset. He has described this to me as an ‘estate’. Am I correct in thinking that my friend has delusions of grandeur?
O.G., London SW8
A. It is widely agreed that for an area of land in England to qualify as an estate, the acreage must exceed 1,000.
If you have a problem, write to Dear Mary, c/o The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL.
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