Q. My first book comes out next month and the publishers are launching it with a drinks party in a London bookshop between 6.30 and 8 p.m. I can count at least 20 old friends and family, to say nothing of my editor and publicist, who will naturally expect me to have dinner with them afterwards. We don’t have a London flat any more. My husband would love to take ten people out to dinner but not 20 — not because of the expense, but because of the noise and the chaos. How do I choose without upsetting people?
—Name withheld, Warwickshire
A. You could be certain of hurting no one by planning to drive straight back to Warwickshire after the party, on the understandable grounds that you will be ‘too shattered’ to have dinner. Otherwise it should be possible to ask a discreet London-based friend to give dinner for ten in his own home.
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