Q. My parents brought me up to write only my name in a visitors’ book. However, following a recent long weekend in the house of a friend’s father, I was last to sign and found the other guests had all written lengthy gushing tributes to our host. If I didn’t follow suit, my own entry would seem unenthusiastic. The upshot was that I compromised and wrote my name and ‘thank you so much’. What should I have done?
—N.M., Fonthill, Wilts
A. You should have stuck to your guns and signed only your name. You could have explained to the others that since your predecessors had far exceeded your own ability to express exactly the same emotions, you would have had nothing more to add.
Q. I was walking through St James’s the other day with a potential new client when I ran into a business rival.
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