Q. My cousin and her husband recently went to a dinner party. When they compared notes later, it emerged that the husband had seen the cat before dinner with its paw and tongue in the butter dish, which was then placed on the table, and the wife had seen the cat sitting in the bowl of fresh salad which was also then served. How could they have warned each other and the other guests without offending the hostess, who adores her cats?
E.S., London W11
A. Should this happen again it would be advisable for the witness to affect to sneeze over the dishes in question. He/she could then announce, ‘I’m so sorry. I absolutely insist on being allowed to rewash the salad and scrape a few centimetres off the butter all the way round. You can never be too careful.’
Q. We live in a beautiful block of flats in Hampstead — apart from one eyesore. Unfortunately our otherwise very civilised neighbours treat the common hallway as a boot room, leaving their dirty boots outside their front door after a walk on the Heath. We don’t want to embarrass them or damage the relationship, so could you suggest a polite but effective way of encouraging them to keep their footwear inside? I know they’ve got new carpets, but even so!
Emily, London NW3
A. Take two of the pairs of boots away and keep them in your flat. After a few days, knock on your neighbours’ door holding the boots nicely contained within an attractive oilcloth jumbo bag of the sort available from Cath Kidston (£18) and ask do the boots by any chance belong to them? When they say yes, feign embarrassment. Say you had flakey friends to stay who asked if they could borrow boots to go for a walk and you said yes. Next thing you know, your friends have gone home and you find this oilcloth bag in your flat containing these muddy boots which are not yours. ‘They must have thought the boots in the hall were our boots and when they came back upstairs with them still on they obviously zipped them into this bag to keep our carpets clean,’ you can pant. ‘And we’ve only just unzipped it! Why not have this oilcloth bag as a present? Then you can keep your boots inside your own front door and I can rest assured none of my flakey friends are going to help themselves again!’
Q. An English friend has decided to settle in Australia with his family and wants to hold an ‘At Home’ to repay hospitality he has received in the past from business contacts and members of his reciprocal club here. He would like to invite these gentlemen’s wives or partners too but does not know how to address the envelopes because he is not au fait with their marital status. He balks at sending out his invitations addressed to ‘Mr John Smith and Partner’. Mary, can you provide an elegant solution to this pressing problem?
S.J., NSW, Australia
A. He should simply address the envelope to, for example, John Smith, and on the invitation write ‘John — please bring a guest’. This puts the ball in John Smith’s court, leaving it up to him to reveal the guest’s status with regard to himself when introducing him/her at the party.
If you have a problem write to Dear Mary, c/o The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP.
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