Q. Each year I send out about 130 Christmas cards and get back about 80. This year I received 40. I have no reason to think that I have become less popular. Can you shed any light on this disheartening development, Mary? — J.F., London SW12 A. Many people simply could not afford to send
From Craig Brown Q. As I get older I find myself more and more afflicted by dindinitis, which is probably best defined as a morbid dread of dinner parties. Within ten minutes of sitting down, I find that I am tongue-tied and so too is everyone else. Short of ‘You must give me the recipe’
Q. Each year I help to organise a big Christmas event for charity. In October I write to all my rich friends inviting them to buy tickets. Some loyally do, others say they won’t be able to come but send donations anyway. A third lot don’t even bother to reply. Falling into this last category
Q. I volunteer for a charity one morning a week. This happens on one of the mornings when my cleaner comes. I have a feeling that as soon as I have gone out she knocks off early, knowing I won’t be back, although she still has another 45 minutes to go. I cannot put my
Q. The other day, when making a purchase in a rather poncy shop, I was taken aback when the assistant stared directly at the keypad while I was entering my PIN. Normally they make a point of rather ostentatiously looking away, but this one made a point of ostentatiously looking at the pad. I could
Q. When we lived in the country we had a close friend virtually next door. We always dropped in and out of each other’s houses without ringing first; one is always ‘ready’ for visitors in the country in a way one is not in London. The problem is that this man, who we absolutely adore,
Q. I was waiting for the London train at my local railway station the other morning when I saw a neighbour whose business is doing spectacularly well at the moment. He came up grinning and announced that he had just been shooting in Suffolk on the estate my husband’s family used to own. He said,
Q. An old friend has been complaining to mutual other friends that I have dropped her because I have become ‘so grand’. The truth is that we are members of the same profession and currently I have to work incredibly long hours and travel a lot while she does not. But, to reassure her, I
Q. I was staying recently with a very old girlfriend and her mother at her mother’s house in the country in England and was given my old girlfriend’s bedroom for the weekend on the upper attic floor. I suspect that the room had not been used for a long time. The house is not centrally
Q. I recently spent three hours in the hairdresser undergoing an expensive hair straightening technique (£200) so that my hair now looks sleek, like Jennifer Aniston’s, rather than frizzy. I was delighted with the result, which is expected to last for three months — but as I walked into a party, on the first outing
Q. I have noticed that, when you use the new type of tomato ketchup bottle, it makes a rude noise which can be embarrassing if you are eating alone with other couples behind you. I wondered how I could alert fellow diners to the noise having come from the bottle and not from me? —
Q. A close friend is attractive and clever, but does not have a boyfriend and would be far too shy to try internet or speed dating. She lives, platonically, in London with a man who works with her but he does not have a wide circle of friends and has been no good at introducing
Q. How can I, before accepting an invitation to dinner, find out if the person issuing it has a sweep? The question seems so snobbish but the truth is that unless they have one, my husband and I can’t go. To explain: our normal car was in an accident and will take weeks to repair.
Your problems solved Q. I was recently at my local library with my two-year-old daughter. A woman sat next to me with a daughter of about the same age. In the spirit of polite conversation she asked me what my daughter was called. When I told her, she looked absolutely horrified and exclaimed loudly that
Q. Friends have just moved into a new house — let’s call it Gamekeepers Folly. I am planning to give them a handmade visitors’ book as a present, but am in somewhat of a quandary as to what to tell the embosser to put on the front. Should I have the missing apostrophe inserted or
Q. I recently rented a villa near Nice belonging to friends of a friend and did it without an agent, which was probably a mistake. A faulty pipe caused flooding on the lower ground floor. Four plumbers came in and out of the house over four days but still one of my sons had to
Q. My teenage son, who has started a new school, wants to bring some friends to stay over an exeat. He is keen not to alienate these new friends by appearing to have overly authoritarian parents, but I have reason to believe they will bring mobile telephones to the table and will assume they may
Q. I am getting married next year and I read with interest your recent correspondence concerning public medal-wearing. I am a former Royal Auxiliary Air Force member and had hoped to wed in uniform. Sadly however, several years ago forces beyond my control meant I had to retire from the RAuxAF, and so I cannot
Q. The forthcoming Chatsworth attic sale has inspired me to stage a similar, though much smaller event. The problem is opposition from my 85-year-old mother, who resists any kind of change and does not like to see things going out which she imagines could be put to use at some stage in the future. Our
Q. Please can you advise on a matter that, although seemingly trivial, is causing some tension in our household. Like many families, rather than spreading butter on our toast at breakfast time, we have switched to one of the supposedly healthier alternative low-fat spreads. Our problem is by what name should we refer to this