Dear Mary | 4 July 2009

Q. An old friend summoned me to a black-tie dinner at the Cambridge college of which he is master. On arrival I found I had forgotten cuff links so I threaded a shoelace through each cuff and tied them together that way. Knowing that I have about 20 pairs of cuff links at home, I could not bring myself, in the current financial climate, to go out and buy another pair. I felt my response was imaginative but my host raised his eyebrows in a pompous way and made me feel small. Who was right, Mary?

C.S., Worcs

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Matthew Parris

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A. It really depends on how the laces looked. Might they have looked a little bit Sir Les Patterson? Might your host have felt the omission was symptomatic of a general lack of respect for himself? Next time this happens why not take a tip from Edward McMillan-Scott, vice president of the European parliament? When, on a recent occasion, he found himself similarly caught short, he employed a pair of polo mints with standard-issue brass butterfly clips plunged through them. The result? Understated elegance for less than five pence.

Q. A close family friend invited my wife (but not me) to her 50th birthday lunch party at a Kensington restaurant. I wasn’t invited, as it was to be a ‘girls only’ affair. A subsequent email from her husband mentioned that ‘guests’ would be asked to contribute £35 towards the cost of the lunch. Towards the end of lunch, attended by a dozen or so ladies, the husband appeared and collected the money as the ‘guests’ left. My wife was unwell but made the effort to attend, eating little and drinking nothing. The lady ahead of her in the queue offered the husband £60, which he readily accepted, and for a moment my wife thought it would be churlish not to follow suit, but rightly feeling that it was a heavy price to pay for a half-eaten bowl of pasta, handed over the aforementioned £35 which the husband swiftly pocketed.