Dear Mary… Q. My social life and my job depend to a degree on my contacts with the aristocracy. During a recent visit to a stately home, I had an unfortunate reaction to alcohol and rich food. The result, without going into too many details, was that I had no alternative but to take my
Dear Mary… Q. At a party recently we reconnected with a couple we had not seen for a few years. We agreed to have dinner soon, and duly invited them. They then had us back, and we were happy to have re-established the relationship. When we next invited them for dinner, they accepted enthusiastically, saying
Dear Mary… Q. Last week I had dinner in a restaurant with some old friends whose number included a woman we all like a lot with her new (younger) boyfriend. The latter responded to every question about himself and his work as though he was his own public-relations officer. Everything was going very well, everyone
Dear Mary… Q. In the course of a typical week I normally spend a good deal of time travelling around the country by train. During these trips I frequently find that my mobile telephone has run short of battery because of the high volume of calls I have to make. Being on a train I
Dear Mary… Q. About to depart abroad for a year, I had some friends in for farewell drinks. As they were leaving, I invited them to help themselves from the box destined for Oxfam in the hall. One picked out an ashtray and said, ‘I gave you this.’ And she had. Mary, how could I
Dear Mary… Q. A neighbour – an eminent retired politician, philanthropist and keen ornithologist – has just acquired an owl whistle, beautifully crafted from wood. When blown, it makes a most realistic toowooo. He related to me, a few days ago, that the previous evening he had tried it out for the first time at
Dear Mary… Q. A problem I often run into at school is that of the ‘mystery offence’. For example, arriving in my form room at the start of this term, a very dear friend ‘death-stared’ me and refused to speak to me. On inquiry as to how I had offended, she replied, ‘You know.’ What
Dear Mary… Q. For years I have suffered embarrassment at the hands of my father’s gluttony – specifically his habit of ordering an entire pint of ice cream when we go out, enough to satisfy an entire family, and devouring it at the gelato shop in front of judgmental eyes obviously disgusted by the display.
Dear Mary… Q. I refer to your advice on giving eulogies (Your problems solved, l7 August). Is not ‘eulogy’ suggestive of de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and therefore of formal praise which does not truly honour the dead? That aside, may I add to your wise words, because what to say at a memorial service
Dear Mary… Q. I am recovering in hospital from a serious car accident in which – among other things – I cracked my spine. I have been overwhelmed by the messages of sympathy and concern from friends, colleagues and acquaintances alike. However, one couple, whom I had long regarded as ‘friends’, have not so much
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