Q. I am a British MEP which is, you will agree, a heavy social cross to bear. For six years I have tried to set a sartorial example to my fellow MEPs, wearing nothing that did not emanate from Jermyn Street or Savile Row. Now an old rugby injury to the knee necessitates the wearing of orthopaedic shoes. The design of these shoes is so appalling I fear people who do not know me might think I am foreign or, worse, a British Liberal Democrat. Can you help me to find a solution?
G.B., by email
A. You are right to be anxious. Shoe-ism is an underacknowledged factor in social discrimination. The doorman of the legendary nightclub Studio 54, when asked how he could possibly judge at a glance whether people were cool enough to be admitted, replied that he simply looked at their shoes. You must flag up the fact that these orthopaedic shoes are being worn for medical, rather than Liberal Democratic, reasons. Why not knock up some ‘NHS property’ stickers on your home computer and affix them across the toecaps where they cannot be missed? In this way you will escape the stigmatisation you fear.
Q. My husband has started working from home. I do not want a divorce so I have taken a part-time job but we are still having terrible rows. Unfortunately he roams through the house talking on a hands-free telephone and scribbling notes down on newspapers, on other people’s important letters, their chequebooks, receipts, anything he can find. Inevitably he loses these notes. Now, every day when I come home, I have to face him accusing me and other members of the household of having ‘moved his notes’. The tension in our family home is at an all-time high. How can I discipline my beloved husband and confine him to the one room we have set aside for his office?
Name withheld, London W11
A. Purchase a roll of wallpaper lining paper and unfurl a few yards of it over your husband’s desk. Use his laptop to secure the roll in place. Within a very short time the natural graffiti-writing instinct will kick in and he will find scribbling on this blank surface irresistible. He can roll out a few more feet at a time as he needs them but, crucially, all data scribbled there will remain accessible. Since his sense of achievement will then become incrementally linked to the jottings, he will find himself roaming back towards this tempting tabula rasa each time he needs to make a note. Incidentally, hands-free telephones are currently unfashionable on electromagnetic smog grounds. Citing health reasons, why not install a tethered line into his office instead? This will also help to curb his wanderings.
Q. At a very good, but very crowded party, a woman I was talking to kept accepting fish canapés and breathing fish fumes over me. I was trapped by the crowds and eventually felt so sick I had to leave early. How can one politely ask a near stranger to stop eating fish near your face?
P.W., Lewes
A. The correct protocol is to say, ‘Will you excuse me if I am breathing fumes all over you? I have eaten a huge number of those canapés.’ The other person will reply, ‘Don’t worry, you are not,’ to which you remain silent. The penny will soon drop and they will refresh their palate. Meanwhile, counterbalance this mini-slight by talking with extra animation so they do not feel you want them to go away.
Comments