Modern manners

Thursday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How do you escape from a stranger’s childhood trauma story?

Q. Recently a cousin and I gave a small drinks party in the USA. She had invited a very elegant older Hispanic woman. At the end of the party, my cousin was in a tête-à-tête with this woman on the sofa and I was left with two other (American) women at the table, one of whom was telling amusing anecdotes. I deliberately didn’t interrupt my cousin as I thought she wanted to be alone with her new friend. However later my cousin said that the woman, without any prompting, had started a long story of how she’d been abused by her stepfather as a child. My cousin was longing to

Thursday

Rory Sutherland

Will self-driving cars know what to do in the middle lane?

I am convinced that when I took my driving test in 1983 I was asked by the examiner, ‘What lane of a three-lane motorway should you use when driving at a speed of 70 mph?’ And I am equally sure that the ‘correct’ answer to this question at that time, as given by the early 1980s version of the Highway Code, was ‘the middle one’. My memory is that the three lanes of a motorway back then were designated 1) the slow lane, 2) the fast lane and 3) the overtaking lane. Whenever I mention this, however, no one else remembers anything of the kind. Rather predictably, about one in three people then takes

Mark Palmer

Warning: upspeak can wreck your career

A few weeks ago, I accompanied my daughter to an Open Day at Roehampton College, where she is hoping to start a teacher training course in September. I enjoyed it — and was impressed by the broad mix of motivated young men and women who, if all goes well, will soon be teaching the next generation of primary school children. Towards the end of the afternoon, the co-ordinator said she wanted to offer a few tips about the interview process that would begin once all the applications have been submitted. It turned out she had only one main tip: avoid upspeak. She stressed the point vigorously. Indeed, her message for

Cosmo Landesman

I’m nearly 60. I’m still interested in sex. Is that a problem?

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_13_February_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Cosmo Landesman and Mary Wakefield discuss what defines a ‘dirty old man'” startat=683] Listen [/audioplayer] The other day I casually remarked to my ex-wife that our son’s new teacher is ‘really hot’. She gave me a look of disgust, shook her head and said, ‘You dirty old man!’ It’s not the first time I’ve been called that, and usually I just keep smiling and stay silent. But this time I bridled. Recently, in two separate courtrooms, both Dave Lee Travis and Bill Roache had been denounced as ’dirty old men’. OK, I confess: maybe I did emit a ‘phwhoar!’ or two too many for my ex’s taste —

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: What do I do now I haven’t sent a thank-you letter?

Q. Over New Year I stayed with a man who combines being a generous and exciting host with a punctilious need for swift, hand-written appreciation. I had every intention of writing as soon as I got home, but my parents said an email wouldn’t do. However, since we were collected from the airport I didn’t have the address and postcode (he lives abroad); also, I didn’t know what his correct title was for the envelope, and I didn’t know what stamp to put on. Then, when I finally had the information, I was told, ‘He gets even more enraged by late letters than by no letters at all.’ I am sure

Thursday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I make my friends read the book I gave them?

Q. I gave a copy of Dan Russel the Fox by Somerville and Ross to a couple I know to be very keen on hunting. It’s an out-of-print novel, hard to get hold of, and it cost quite a lot, but as I know it to be such a deeply enjoyable read, I thought it would be well worth the effort of getting it so I could give it to them when they kindly had me to dinner. Frustratingly, however, every time I run into this couple and ask what they thought of Dan Russel the Fox, they reply that they haven’t got round to reading it yet. It’s not an

Thursday

Harry Mount

The case against London cabbies

I lost my misguided faith in black cabs last week, on the corner of Royal College Street in north London. It was the tiniest trip — 2.4 miles from Bloomsbury to my Camden flat at 11.30 in the evening. Hard to mess up, too: empty roads, good weather and the easiest of routes — practically a straight line to my flat. To my horror, the cabbie dodged the obvious, straight route and embarked on an extended loop through the traffic-choked hub of Camden Town tube station and Camden Market. I pointed him in the right direction and he reluctantly did a U-turn and headed up Royal College Street. Not a

Thursday

Florence King

America’s war on sleep

 Fredericksburg, Virginia Ask an American to name the author of the line ‘Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care’, and he will promptly reply ‘Shakespeare’. It’s pure guesswork but we always credit the Bard with anything that sounds like a literary quotation, so he inadvertently gets it right. But if you recite the rest of the passage and ask what it means you will draw a blank. The American mind will not spark until it hears ‘Macbeth hath murdered sleep’, which sets off a cascading display of audience-identification fireworks, and visions of a new American production in which Macbeth is renamed Big Thane and cast as the hero

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I hide my tattoo from the in-laws?

Q. I have a tattoo the length of my forearm and am worried it will alienate my new boyfriend’s parents on a forthcoming beach holiday. There will be no way of covering it up in a very hot climate. My boyfriend says his parents are way too pompous and it will be good for them to have a tattooed guest ‘in their face’ every day for a week, but I have no wish to irritate people who have been kind enough to invite me to Barbados. How should I handle this? — Name and address withheld A. Visit the website www.veilcover.com and watch a video showing how to completely mask

Thursday

Rory Sutherland

How James Goldsmith’s wisdom on mistresses could revolutionise mobile phones

I wouldn’t worry much about the future of the British economy. Because I have a simple plan to make the UK the world’s leading exporter of mobile phones. They will be manufactured by a new consortium including Alfred Dunhill, Cordings and Bowers & Wilkins. The idea came to me when I was watching coverage of the new scandal in France, where a government security officer was photographed at 8 a.m. delivering a bag of croissants to Hollande’s love nest. My first reaction was disgust — I mean, how bad must things be in a country when even the president can’t get a cooked breakfast? But his behaviour also made me

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I escape my neighbour’s spy cameras?

Q. I have a problem with what might be called location blindness. I live in Balham, but when I arrange restaurant lunches with friends, most of whom live in west London, they tend to assume I will be happy to make three times as long a journey to meet up as they will have to make themselves. A good midpoint for me would be, for example, Green Park, which takes only 15 minutes by Tube from Clapham South, but often, when someone has agreed to meet there, they ring at the 11th hour to suggest Notting Hill instead (50 minutes by tube for me, ten minutes’ walk for them). Or else

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Why should Nigel Farage have to fight the ghost of Enoch Powell?

One of the genuine seasonal pleasures to be enjoyed as 2013 slipped around the U-bend was Enoch Powell making his familiar comeback as the Evil Ghost of Christmases Past. Enoch was disinterred by the producers of the hitherto un-noticed Murnaghan Show — presumably in order to frighten the viewers and put a spanner in the wheel of the programme’s principal guest interviewee, the Ukip leader Nigel Farage. Dermot Murnaghan tripped up Mr Farage by the devilishly clever tactic of reading him some anodyne quotes from Powell’s exciting and controversial ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech and asking Farage if he agreed with them. But only later did he reveal that they were the

Theodore Dalrymple

Don’t tax sugar – it doesn’t make you fat. Gluttony does

If there is one characteristic that accounts for the deep unattractiveness of the modern British, it is their lack of self-control. It is not merely that they lack such self-control as they scream their obscenities in the street, eat everywhere they go, and leave litter behind them: it is that they are actively opposed to self-control on grounds of health and safety. They are convinced that self-control is the enemy of self-expression, without which their existences would be poisoned as if by an unopened abscess. Therefore the notion, increasingly propounded in the press and elsewhere, that sugar is an addictive substance will be music to their ears — or rather

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: What should I do when my dinner guests dive for their iPads?

Q. We had our son’s fiancée and her family to stay recently. After dinner, expecting conversation, we were shocked to see them all slumped in our drawing room staring at their ‘tablets’ and, I presume, playing on the internet. What should my wife and I have done? I was tempted to do the crossword or read a book but this seemed rude. — C.T., Dorsoduro, Italy A. You would have done well to turn the discourtesy to your own advantage — namely to use it as a tool to find out more about your son’s prospective in-laws. Acting daft, you might have said, ‘Oh what fun! Are we all going

Thursday

Mary Killen

How can I be a member of the Chipping Norton set?

Q. I am working on becoming a member of the Chipping Norton set. Should I be pronouncing the excellent open-air swimming pool as lee-doh or lie-doh? — P.W., by email A. You might as well pronounce it correctly — lee-doh — but which Chipping Norton set are you aiming to join? The set made up of Cameron, Brooks and Clarkson (who fund-raises for the Lido) exists mainly in the mind of journalists. Then there is the real Chipping Norton set whose members are mainly earthy, arty and left-wing. They pronounce it lee-doh as well. The Lido is charming but you will need to do more than pronounce its name correctly

Thursday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I make my host pour me a drink?

Q. Some years ago, on holiday in Egypt, we found ourselves in the company of a couple who wanted to see us when we got home. Out of politeness we agreed and we have now fallen into a rut of reciprocal dinners. It has become a bore — perhaps for them as well. How can we stop it without seeming rude? — B.K., address withheld A. Next time provide entertainment as well as dinner.  A talk, concert or play would give new shared references to discuss, just like in the days when you had Egypt in common. It would also halt a slide into cultural complacency. In London, for example,

Carola Binney Carola Binney

Haunted by Facebook, students can’t now reinvent themselves at university

My mum had a friend at university who had been called ‘Pudding’ at school. They’d sometimes be walking down the street, and someone who had known the now-svelte adult as a chubby 13-year-old would say ‘Hello, Pudding’. As I get ready to start at university myself in October, it’s in the knowledge that my schoolgirl self will be even harder to escape. Reinventing yourself at the end of sixth form was once a time-honoured rite of passage, hindered only by a few easily avoided old acquaintances. In Brideshead Revisited, Charles Ryder frees himself from the self-consciously serious circle of his school days with relative ease: ‘At Sebastian’s approach these grey

Thursday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: The rules of wearing a dressing gown

Q. What to do when you are an unwilling eavesdropper in a train carriage in which people you know assume they are alone and start talking very indiscreetly about someone else you know and you have left it too late to alert them to your presence? — Name and address withheld A. Ideally you will have access to earphones and some sort of electronic device and can walk through the carriage dopily, as though looking for a newspaper. Wrench out the headphones theatrically on seeing the talkers. In the absence of headphones, duck your head down, walk backwards to the nearest connecting doors and, when they wheeze open, walk through

Thursday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary: How can I stop this bore reading his novel aloud?

Q. Is there a polite way of halting a wannabe novelist from reading his oeuvre aloud to an unwilling audience? A neighbour on the residents’ committee happened to be leaving as friends were arriving for drinks and I felt I should invite him to join us. It was all going swimmingly until he told someone he was writing a novel, and she made the mistake of pretending she would be interested in reading it. No one had reckoned on this (very insensitive) man having a copy of the wretched thing on his iPhone and he read aloud at length, pausing only to laugh at his own genius. It killed the

Thursday

Matthew Parris

Gay civil partners should resist pressure to ‘upgrade’ to marriage

Apparently I’ve proposed to my civil partner. He claims that on BBC Radio 2, on the Jeremy Vine show (he thinks it was the JV show) I expressed myself in terms which presumed his prior acceptance. I can’t remember a thing about it — on live radio one does tend to throw these thoughts out heedlessly — but my partner swears I said, ‘Oh yes, well I suppose we’ll have to get an upgrade.’ He found this a graceless way of popping the question, and has forbidden me from using the term ‘upgrade’ again. Ah well. But in that case, if not ‘upgrade’, what shall we call it? ‘Conversion’ appears