Dear Mary | 27 June 2013

Q. Is there a tactful way to speed the departure of someone who has come for drinks only, but fails to leave when dinner is announced? Chatting to punters during my recent NGS open day, I made the mistake of boasting that a certain household name, who had been spotted in the area, was actually staying with me. One of these punters, a local and a friend of a friend, begged to meet her ‘absolute idol’ and proposed herself for drinks before dinner. Local and idol got on famously but local, having declined my wife’s suggestion that she stay on to dinner, showed no sign of leaving. She was not drunk but seemed oblivious to the frozen grins on our other six guests’ hungry faces as she chatted gaily on. Indeed she might still be there now had not one of her children telephoned her mobile to urge her to go home.