Q. When hosting a dinner party, should one circulate the biographies/Wikipedia entries of your guests beforehand so that everyone arrives forearmed, as it were, and can therefore skip the small talk and the fishing around for information about one’s interlocutor? I am inviting eight to dinner, six of whom will have never met before, although I have chosen them carefully because they have good professional and social reasons to be interested in one another.
– R.R., London W6
A. Michael Portillo said the other day that, when he was on the Moral Maze panel on Radio 4, he needed to know what the topics were in advance in order to work out what he thought. In the same way it is useful for people to know who else will be at a dinner party. However, it is naff and New Yorky to provide potted bios or even a list. Better to release key data beforehand by ringing guests to say (for example): ‘By the way, X is also writing a history of the Punic Wars’ or ‘Y is also in the music business’. (Inversely, the worst solecism is, when invited to a dinner party, to ask who else will be there before saying yes or no.)
Q. While idly scrolling through Instagram, I stumbled on the page of a rather self-satisfied acquaintance and accidentally pressed the ‘follow’ tab. I’m concerned this individual now thinks I am interested in him. Is it OK to ‘unfollow’ an acquaintance immediately, or does etiquette require a period of time elapse before ‘killing’ them?
– N.W., London W6
A. It would be hostile to unfollow.
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