Q. Every year my husband takes two weeks’ prime salmon fishing on a Scottish river. It’s a really nice holiday with a comfortable lodge and a cook. Around Christmas time we start inviting couples to come to stay as our guests, usually by email. Some of them tend to be slow to respond, which is annoying because you just want to know if they’re coming so you can ask other people if not. I feel it would slightly spoil the invitation to put at the end: ‘Please get back to us with your decision as soon as possible.’ Do you have a more subtle idea?
– Name and address withheld
A. Jolt them out of their complacency by opening an extra Gmail account in a Scottish name such as Kirsty Macgregor. Get Kirsty, posing as the lodge manager, to chase the invitees. Kirsty can press them for a decision either way, while you and your husband can personally duck being equated with stress.
Q. My girlfriend has recently moved in with me. All was going well until I discovered that she thinks nothing of stealing my socks – day in, day out. She obviously feels no compunction as she helps herself in front of me. I confronted her and she seemed baffled. She said she grew up in a household where no one expected to retain ownership of a pair of socks for more than a week, and family members simply helped themselves from a large ‘sock box’ in the vestibule. According to this logic, my socks are now ‘family socks’ and apparently I am welcome to hers as well.
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