The cognoscenti will tell you that the best time to visit the south Devon coast is the autumn. The vulgar summer hordes have departed, the weather in September is generally reliable and accommodation is cheaper. Unfortunately for them, word has got out. The lanes round here were more congested with traffic last week than in
Dear Mary… Q. Interrogatives like ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ are gauche and unhelpful. Likewise ‘What does your partner do?’ or, to a third party, ‘Is your friend attached?’ When, increasingly, the lack of a ring signifies nothing, even among the more mature, perhaps, Mary, you might offer a discreet means of establishing a person’s status.
‘Gresham’s Law,’ said my husband unkindly, possessing himself of the zapper and hopping between channels quite unnecessarily. I had just asked him the difference between an irrational number and a transcendental number. ‘Gresham’s Law’ is his shorthand for: ‘Something you don’t understand.’ It is true that in the past every time I have asked, ‘What
