Q. A colleague and friend and I have been particularly close since she ‘saved my life’ ten years ago, having arranged help for me during a medical emergency. But since my retirement a year and a half ago, my attempts to meet for lunch have been fruitless, the last time particularly upsetting when she slept
Q. Returning from a trade fair held at a neighbouring stately home I was reminded of the apophthegm ‘a fool and his money are soon parted’. Before my visit I thought a trade fair was full of dusty men with brawny arms selling exotic tools such as adzes, bradawls and drill braces. This, however, was
Q. We have lived in a very nice, civilised square in south London for nearly 20 years. It’s surprisingly private and everyone gets on well. One of our neighbours is an eminent Liberal Democrat peer of the realm. Unfortunately his wife and he persist in aggressively canvassing and leafleting our neighbours and us, even though
Q. I think I can offer you a solution to a problem which may plague others who spend intimate time with oenophiles and are driven to distraction by slurping. My brother is a mad wine-lover. He slurps his wine noisily. He is a physicist, and seems to be keen to prove that he can defy
Dear Mary… Q. I am shortly to give lunch to a number of high-profile people. Two of them have rung to inquire how late they can leave it before giving me a yes or a no. Do you agree with me that this behaviour, with its assumption that a better invitation may come along in
Dear Mary… Q. I am a consultant to, and former partner of, a professional firm in the suburbs of London, where I do four days a week working in an extraordinarily happy and democratic environment with political incorrectness to the fore. A problem has arisen of a very delicate nature, where it has been alleged
Dear Mary… Q. My husband’s 87-year-old father is greatly enjoying the Iraq war. With an understandable sense of personal invulnerability, he has been sitting in his ‘safe house’ in Cornwall, watching virtually every news bulletin and revelling in ‘the deep satisfaction of seeing rockets hitting their targets’, et cetera. We are taking our children, aged
Q. The person with whom I used to march, before he had to sell up, is hostile to my plan to allow wind turbines on my land. He still lives nearby and his view will be affected. He is utterly opposed on environmental grounds — the noise, the despoilation of the skyline, the fact that wind