Dear Mary… | 28 April 2007

Q. I have a close, dear girlfriend of many years standing. She is extremely glamorous and quite youthful but is nevertheless a Suffolk housewife, the mother of five children and the wife of an extremely conservative and highly respected member of White’s. My quandary is how to confront her about her reckless and inappropriate pursuit of ancient rock stars and her attempts to turn herself into a rock-chick diva. Wearing eye-wateringly tight crotch-skimming shorts with bovver boots, she ‘grooves and boogies’ in the VIP areas of rock concerts. Her uncoordinated arm waving and hip swivelling in ‘man in drag’ lip and eyeliner while shouting ‘yeah!’ throughout each set rather ruins things for some of us old-timers. For us it is enough to stand in black and perhaps quiver an eyebrow to Bob crooning ‘Thunder on the Mountain’. How can I face her with the bitter truth that she is a source of embarrassment to her husband, her friends, and her relentlessly cool children?
N.J.M.,