12 June 2004

Dear Mary… Q. I have an etiquette question for you. I came back from Egypt with a stomach bug the other day, was overcome by nausea on my way across Westbourne Grove, and had to choose between vomiting in the gutter or in the litter bin outside Agnes B. I chose the litter bin but

I heard the other day that the late Lord Hartwell, the proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, had once exclaimed that when he was at Eton he had been taught never to begin a sentence with the word but. He then found to his slight mortification that his chance remark had been set as an iron