Dear Mary: Should I tell my friend that his expensive lunch made me ill?

Q. I see a lot of two of our grandchildren because they live in our London house. We are centrally located so we see a lot of their friends, too. Our grand-children are well-mannered but conversation is always stalling because of their refusal to allow me to use shorthand to identify the friend being discussed e.g. ‘the fat one’. I do not intend to offend — they’re just shortcuts that people of my age group (70+) use when we can’t remember anyone’s name, let alone the names of our grandchildren’s friends. If I have to ask, for example, ‘Was Eric the boy in the Star Wars hoodie who ate crumpets last Tuesday?’ — rather than ‘Is Eric the fat boy?’ — dialogue becomes clunky. How can we break this impasse?
— Name withheld, London W11

A. Why not turn the tables by saying: ‘I can’t picture Eric. What does he look like?’ They’ll soon tire of giving drawn-out descriptions and take shortcuts themselves.