Manners

Q. I am being driven to distraction by a touchy relation who has responded to the lockdown by WhatsApping me three or four times per day with a succession of YouTube and other video clips, accompanied by messages such as ‘You’ll love this!’ If only that were the case. None of the often lengthy video clips are particularly interesting or entertaining, yet I feel obliged to open them, not least because WhatsApp allows her to see whether or not I have done so. The arrival of each new message from her fills me with dread and exhaustion. How can I stop her from continuing to bombard me without hurting her

Q. Each day while working from home, I have at least one hour-long meeting via Zoom. One of my colleagues has a dodgy internet connection and has become a terrible menace as we all politely sit through minutes of unpleasant white noise while she tries to communicate her thoughts. The meeting chair never seems to take a hard line on this; do you have any advice? — M.C., Fosbury, Wilts A. You would do well to join the Zoom meeting via a computer rather than your phone. Zoom will highlight the person who is speaking at any one time, so when the offender’s name comes up on the screen, you

Q. Caught in Switzerland as the ski resort shut down around my ears, and feeling like a walking health hazard, I returned to Somerset to begin splendid isolation days before it became fashionable or mandatory. I’ve been getting loads of jobs done, and the dog is happier than ever, but my peace is being perforated by London friends — the sort who associate solitude with boredom — inviting me to virtual dinner parties on Zoom at a set time with the inescapable tagline ‘we know that you have no other engagements’. After a busy day out in the garden, all I want to do is settle by the log burner

Q. How can I stop a member of the household from glutting out on the chocolate supply I have stockpiled? A glance into the larder would suggest we are more than adequately catered for in the event of a lockdown, but we are an unusually large family (which includes in-laws and staff) and while most of us are on board with an ethical siege spirit, two large bars of Fruit & Nut went missing over the weekend. You don’t have to be Agatha Christie to guess the culprit’s identity. My problem is: how can I catch him in the act? People are in and out of the larder at all

Q. I adore doing jigsaws and these days there’s an added bonus — by posting my progress on Instagram I can share the happy glow it gives me knowing that I’m reducing toxic screen-time habits. Recently I begged to borrow a magnificent 1,000-piece puzzle from a friend — a vast winter scene by Pieter Bruegel. Setting to, I succumbed to the meditative calm and satisfaction of puzzling. After two weeks of hard graft neglecting pretty much all domestic duties, the puzzle was finished, but with a piece missing! This maddening lost piece is an obscure blob of twiggy branch that nobody could love, but its absence mocks all my efforts.

Q. I see a lot of two of our grandchildren because they live in our London house. We are centrally located so we see a lot of their friends, too. Our grand-children are well-mannered but conversation is always stalling because of their refusal to allow me to use shorthand to identify the friend being discussed e.g. ‘the fat one’. I do not intend to offend — they’re just shortcuts that people of my age group (70+) use when we can’t remember anyone’s name, let alone the names of our grandchildren’s friends. If I have to ask, for example, ‘Was Eric the boy in the Star Wars hoodie who ate crumpets