Dear Mary | 21 July 2016

Q. Since my husband began to appear in the Rich List he has become much more popular with ‘artists’ in our wider circle and we receive enough private view invitations per year to last us a lifetime. My husband is a kind man and will often buy something he doesn’t particularly want just to be supportive. He recently made an appearance at a neighbour’s local show and bought the least awful picture he could see. Now we hear the girlfriend of this artist has been telling friends she is going to challenge my husband over his meanness because ‘it would have been no skin off his nose’ to have bought one of the bigger monstrosities. We don’t want to fall out with her because her long-suffering parents are dear friends, so what should I say when we next meet?
— Name and address withheld

A. Why not unnerve the girl by combining compliment and insult? Tell the anecdote of how the late Stanley Seeger collected Picasso.