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
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.
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