Mary Killen

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. I responded patiently, sometimes even giving the same details three times. Recently I wondered if she actually does have the details but it was simpler to get me to look up things up. I want to put an end to it without being rude. What should I do? – E.S., London W11 A. Next time you could convey the nuisance impact of such serial badgering by gushing: ‘What fun!

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 I have chosen them carefully because they have good professional and social reasons to be interested in one another. – R.R., London W6 A. Michael Portillo said the other day that, when he was on the Moral Maze panel on Radio 4, he needed to know what the topics were in advance in order to work out what he thought. In the same way it is useful for people to know who else will be at a dinner party.

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 barely want to eat. I don’t like to ask beforehand about such a sensitive issue, yet neither do I want such waste, so how can I assess the right amount to make?  – M.B., Chelsea, London A. An extremely well-informed source calculates between 15 and 30 per cent of those in elite circles are currently self-dosing. For Cuisine Droguer you can adjust your quantities accordingly, without even asking, but still cook it lovingly. Q.

Q. I’m quite a good friend of a member of our royal family – going back to our shared school days. However, someone who has recently married into my family knows this and they are quite shamelessly pushing me for an introduction. At the moment I am playing for time but I definitely have no intention of fixing up a meeting. Please can you come up with a suggestion that will enable me to knock what would be an awkward scenario on the head? – Name and address withheld A. Kill their ambition by a bit of overstatement: ‘The funny thing is, because we became friends when we were at school, he/she is rather insistent that we see each other on our own. I am never allowed to introduce them to any friends.’ Q.

Q. Annoyingly, one of the Sunday newspapers ran an article about the ‘least used but most scenic footpaths’ in the UK, which identified paths in our immediate area. We have never had a problem with local trespassers on our own land but this article has prompted a deluge of incomer ramblers. They are traipsing not along any of the marked nearby footpaths, but across our field, which has no crops in it but is directly opposite our house. When I politely explain that it isn’t a right of way, they get very defensive, sometimes outright rude. What is the best way to deal with the situation, Mary? – A.F., Shropshire A. Try providing signs at entry points to the field. ‘Beware of the bull sometimes in field. Please keep to the footpath.’ (Attach a map of where the footpath is.

Q. At the age of 50 my brother-in-law has discovered a talent for acting and singing. He has joined a local amateur dramatics society and often takes a leading role. This new dimension in his life has meant the world to him and his self-confidence has soared. Theatre is not our thing, but as my husband and I live in the same town we feel it incumbent to be loyal and attend at least one performance of a run. The small venue tends to become quite warm and stuffy and, with the best will in the world, my hard-working husband finds it difficult not to nod off, especially if he has commuted to and from London that day. The audience is fairly small so anyone not engaged can be clearly seen from the stage and, if I keep nudging him, I can be seen doing so.

Q. A divorced male friend, renting in Notting Hill, has had no historic experience of cooking but has discovered Lidgate pies and started giving lunches. His dining table seats 12, he provides good wine and cheese and the ambiance, the quality of guests and the (fake) log fire make for a superb atmosphere. His morale has been considerably boosted. But sadly the pies (potentially fabulous) are always lukewarm by the time the food is on the plates. Am I alone in thinking that hot plates are essential when serving hot food? If so, how can I say something without undermining his new confidence? – B.B., London W11 A. Well done for flagging Lidgate pies which are ready cooked and you reheat. Re cost: a lamb, leek and apricot pie, serving 12, costs £124 but hot plates are essential.

Q. Every year my husband takes two weeks’ prime salmon fishing on a Scottish river. It’s a really nice holiday with a comfortable lodge and a cook. Around Christmas time we start inviting couples to come to stay as our guests, usually by email. Some of them tend to be slow to respond, which is annoying because you just want to know if they’re coming so you can ask other people if not. I feel it would slightly spoil the invitation to put at the end: ‘Please get back to us with your decision as soon as possible.’ Do you have a more subtle idea? – Name and address withheld A. Jolt them out of their complacency by opening an extra Gmail account in a Scottish name such as Kirsty Macgregor. Get Kirsty, posing as the lodge manager, to chase the invitees.

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 specific areas, or to do specific jobs, she says it’s better for her to judge what needs doing. Incidentally we noted, when she had two weeks off, that we were able to do ourselves, in roughly half the time, what she does for us. We would like to dispense with her services, but she is not bad enough to warrant our sacking her – it’s just the non-compliance that rankles. – Name withheld, London W8 A.

Q. This may sound ridiculous but I have an issue with the Big Issue seller near me. I am in that street several times a day, and he is usually waving and smiling and holding the magazine up at me. He even tried to make me buy a second copy of the Christmas issue, though he knew I had already bought it from him. He said something about wanting to buy his children chicken, which seemed like emotional blackmail. I find I now avoid the street if he is there and go a longer way. I saw a friend’s husband giving him £5 and not bothering to take the mag but this seems patrician and patronising. What can I do? – E.S., London W11 A. Make a point of buying the magazine in another street and have a chat with that vendor.

Q. When is the cut-off date for wishing people a happy new year and asking if someone had a good Christmas? I’m finding it increasingly difficult to stay civil. – L.G., Fosbury, Wilts A. 14 January is the cut-off date for wishing people a happy new year. The Church itself puts an end to Christmas officially at Candlemas on 2 February, so it is absurd to persist in mentioning it beyond this weekend. Bear in mind that these well-wishers mean no harm. They are usually just stuck for something more interesting to say. Q. We have bought a house in Somerset, but the council requires the bins to be placed at the end of our drive by 7 a.m. on a Friday. We get there on Fridays at 7 p.m.

Q. I am a single woman in my thirties and I am at my wits’ end as to where I can meet intelligent, interesting bachelors. Apps are hopeless. I work in publishing but literary men are endlessly promiscuous. Most men my age at parties are married. Any suggestions? – M.S., London SW11 A. You are looking in the wrong places – areas where too many women are competing for too few men. Knowing they are a scarce commodity prompts commitment-phobia in literary and arty types. Better to set out into nerdier pastures in search of an underconfident geek who only needs a makeover. Start attending lectures and conferences in theoretical physics or quantum mechanics where 98 per cent of the audience is guaranteed to be male.

Q. A Belgian couple (a baron and baroness, no less) are regular visitors to the Highlands and I have come to regard them as friends. We always visit good restaurants and go Dutch on the bills. Recently, however, they have taken to bringing over two young men who are a couple and neither of them so much as ‘taks their hand across their pockets’, as we say here. As an Aberdonian this grieves me greatly, as my share of the bill has escalated, and I have consequently taken to shying away from meeting my Belgian friends. Mary, how can I resolve this without causing offence? – M.R., Aberdeen A. Highlight the injustice by using your local knowledge to conspire in advance with the next restaurant. Arrange that individual bills are issued as though it is their norm.

Q. We live in a harmonious and social community in Berkshire and early last year our fun-loving neighbours invited us to a New Year’s Eve party. However, on about 29 December they packed up and went away, only returning on New Year’s Day. We usually have a bracing walk in the afternoons and are bound to bump into them soon (they have small children who need to burn off energy). Should we mention the non-party or just put it down to forgetfulness?  – Name and address withheld A. As you say, the invitation was issued early in the year and no doubt a lot of water went under the bridge in the intervening months. But the couple have still been irresponsible.

Two things come to mind when I think about visitors books. The first is the memory of leaving the home of a low-profile and secretive single man whose company is widely craved. I had been revelling in a sense of self-importance as I had good reason to suspect that the previous occupant of my guest bed had been none other than the late Queen Elizabeth II. Surely this proximity elevated my own moral and social status in some osmotic way? But when I suggested I sign his visitors book my host became querulous. He declared that he didn’t have a visitors book for the precise reason that he didn’t like the idea of his friends ‘snooping’ to see who else had been there. I think of the canny businesswoman who ran a holiday cottage letting agency in Devon 20 years ago.

From Tina Brown Q. I have been dogged all my career as ‘the Queen of Buzz’, which makes people assume I love being in the centre of the social scene. Nothing is further from the truth. Though I will always be an action junkie, I am also a bookworm and a misanthrope, and I live by the maxim of Jomo (the ‘joy of missing out’). How do I find new ways to turn down friends’ kind invitations to go out to dinner without sounding ungrateful, or as if I have turned into the female version of Joe Biden? A. Lunch is much less physically and mentally draining than dinner, so why not reveal that all the transatlantic travel has played havoc with your body clock? You find your brain now fires on all cylinders between the hours of 6 p.m. and 3 a.m.

Q. I have a dear friend who is in a newish relationship. The partner – whom I hardly know – recently visited my city, asked to stay, and groped me soon after arriving. I would like to maintain my relationship with my friend, but if I invite him for dinner he’ll ask to bring his partner, whom I don’t wish to see. Mary, is there a delicate way to handle this without causing a fuss? — Name and address withheld A. Tell him that you have booked a pedicure for both of you – a one-hour session where you will be seated side-by-side in the salon. This will enable you to have a proper catch-up while such things as thickening toenails are dealt with. There will be no opportunity for his new partner to muscle in. Q.

Q. My husband has a stressful job and needs to quietly decompress at the end of the week. This is also the time of year when he has the most sporting invitations and we are often driving 100 miles or more on a Friday night. Our problem is that, due to the nature of the invitations – house parties – we are often asked to give a lift to another person also coming from London. My husband is, honestly, a lovely man but not good on Friday nights, especially if the person in the back seat is a bit of a twitterer. Even with all the kit, there is room for another passenger. When asked for the lift I can hardly say, ‘Sorry, my husband is too irritable on a Friday night to give anyone a lift’ or ‘Only if you stay quiet throughout the whole journey.’ Mary, what can I do?

Q. I have been working in London as a receptionist in a private members’ club and consequently have had the opportunity to meet and chat to a number of single men – always while sitting safely behind my desk. Now I have left the job, one of these members has started direct messaging me and asking for a date, saying that he would like to get to know me better. I would like to know him better too. I sense there is more to him than the braggart he presents as – but the other girls who worked with me say he always lunges and only wants one thing. How can I see him, but without him pre-empting a proper relationship by lunging at me on the first date? He works during the day so dinner is the only option. – W.F., London W11 A. You have missed the obvious solution.