Q. At a drinks party I was introduced to a senior politician and found myself lost for words. I was not overawed, Mary, the problem was that although I admire the man, every gambit which went through my head seemed to be intrusive, patronising, critical, grovelling or stalker-like. I would like to be better prepared
Q. I have two sons. The elder speaks in RP, like his parents; the younger with an estuarine accent. They went to the same state school. What should I say when acquaintances who have met both boys question this anomaly? I find it difficult to explain without making both sons seem pretentious. — Name withheld,
Q. How, when you have asked people for drinks at seven, can you make sure that they do not stay all evening? We recently moved to the country at weekends and my husband has invited some neighbours to come up for a drink on Saturday night. It did not occur to him that, because they
Q. A friend gives regular dinner parties with all the potential to be brilliant events. She knows wonderful people and always has an interesting mix. She has a flat in Chelsea. She is a beautiful, stylish and generous woman but she rarely gets the food on the table before 10 p.m., by which time people
Q. A close friend has married, in later life, a very nosy and mischievous man. She adores him and keeps boasting about what a computer wizard he is. Unfortunately, I have sound reason to believe he has been hacking into my emails and reading them. It was pretty smart of him to work out my
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. 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