Mary Killen Mary Killen

Dear Mary: how can I get restaurants to turn off loud music?

iStock 
issue 27 April 2024

Q. My husband never wants to go out to lunch on a day when he could be gardening but he has grudgingly accepted a wonderful forthcoming local event that I’m very keen to attend myself. Now I find from a fellow guest that our host is planning on seating him next to a woman who (she says) is ‘one of his biggest fans’. The feeling is not mutual – in fact, if my husband found out about this seating plan, he would definitely refuse to come. Yet now that I know about this, it would be disloyal and deceitful of me not to tell him. How can I resolve this without causing offence to our host?

– Name and address withheld

A. Confide in an influential third party that the leaked seating plan is causing anxiety for you. You have always had an irrational but nagging suspicion that your husband carries a torch for this woman and you’re dreading the consequences of their spending a few hours seated only inches away from each other.

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