Dear Mary

Dear Mary: Is it acceptable to go to bed before my guests do?

Q. I am a self-employed travel specialist, concentrating on holidays in Asia. Friends (and even friends of friends) plague me asking for tips on flights and itineraries. Then they go online and book direct instead of through me. Sometimes I have spent hours putting the holiday together for them. How can I politely say ‘no’

Dear Mary: Should weddings be ‘no ring, no bring’?

Q. An old friend who is extremely generous and loyal has the most infuriating habit. Despite being efficient in other ways, she doesn’t seem to have a functioning address book or contacts on her iPhone. She recently had a huge book launch and for weeks ahead was emailing me repeatedly for emails or mobile numbers.

Dear Mary: What is the etiquette of unfollowing someone on Instagram?

Q. When hosting a dinner party, should one circulate the biographies/Wikipedia entries of your guests beforehand so that everyone arrives forearmed, as it were, and can therefore skip the small talk and the fishing around for information about one’s interlocutor? I am inviting eight to dinner, six of whom will have never met before, although

Dear Mary: How do I stop Ozempic ruining my dinner parties?

Q. I enjoy giving dinner parties and put a lot of effort into the preparations. However, recently I have noticed that much of the food I lovingly cook goes uneaten despite proclamations of how delicious it is. It has dawned on me that a large number of my friends are secretly on weight-reduction injections, and

Dear Mary: How do I get my cleaner to quit?

Q. How can we get our new unsatisfactory house cleaner to resign? There is a huge demand for cleaners in our neighbourhood (the going rate here is £30 an hour, cash), and it took us months to find her, but we are frustrated by her resistance to our direction. If we ask her to tackle

Dear Mary: Can I regift an unwanted tin of sweets?

Q. A kind villager gave us a jolly circular tin of sweets for Christmas. We are both overweight and would normally have no compunction in simply re-gifting such a present, but unfortunately the ingredients listed are almost exclusively ultra-processed. I therefore feel that any potential recipients might be insulted by our giving it to them