Dear Mary…
Q. Further to your letter regarding the telephone habits of foreigners, would they by any chance be Greek? Married for 20 years to a Greek, I am aware that no convention attaches at all to what we consider to be good manners. Calls will be placed and accepted at any place and any time without restraint on the length, volume or banality of the discussion. I have regularly been to dinner parties where invitees settle on the sofa, among other guests, and as many as two or three of them will make outgoing calls which are manifestly not urgent. Remonstration is received with puzzlement as there is no recognition of any rudeness.
R. McM., by email
A. My previous correspondent was complaining, as it happens, about someone of Indian lineage, not Greek, but as far as I know the offence is not racially linked.
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