Mary Killen Mary Killen

Your Problems Solved | 4 September 2004

Etiquette advice from The Spectator's Miss Manners

issue 04 September 2004

Dear Mary…

Q. Last week I arrived to stay with some English friends near St Remy and was shown to a most delightful and certainly ‘best’ spare bedroom — with glorious views over the Camargue and beyond. You can imagine my astonishment when, on climbing into my luxurious bed later that night and folding the essential but always romantic mosquito net around the bed, a pair of extra-large men’s boxer shorts dropped on top of me. (I, incidentally, am a single woman and was travelling alone.) The pants had clearly been left behind by the guest immediately before me and had got muddled up in the mosquito net. My dilemma is twofold. I know the owner of the underpants to be a flamboyant picture dealer who has offices near mine in Jermyn Street. He and his wife are a madly social and well-connected couple and I have been keen to get to know them better.

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