Dear Mary
Q. My wife and I have between us received invitations to no fewer than 17 parties being held in London on Wednesday, 12 November, all of them drinks parties between 6.30 and 9 p.m. How should we tackle this embarras de richesse? Although five of the parties are in SW1, it is my experience that even if two parties are virtually in the same street, it still takes 20 minutes at the very least to leave one party, enter another, hand in one’s coat, wait for a drink, then push through the throng to the host. There also seems to be no way of knowing what time a party will be good at. For example, the other night I went to the V&A opening of the Gothic exhibition at which the only person was the minister Stephen Twigg, who was being heckled. Meanwhile my wife, arriving at 7.45, met people of the calibre of Sir Edward Poynings, English soldier and diplomatist. What should we do? We are nearly distraught.
Name and address withheld
A. Go to none of the parties. Stay loftily at home and get on with your correspondence or some reading you need to catch up with. Instead throw a party yourself in three weeks’ time to which you invite all 17 hosts of the rival parties you mention. In this way you can satisfy your curiosity without there being any sense of panic.
Q. My wife and I are elderly. Over the years we have formed the habit of holding hands when walking out of doors. On a recent holiday this year in Corfu we were jostled by a group of English youths who were obviously the worse for wear, one of whom shouted in a loud voice, ‘Watch it, Mum.
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