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Friday 4 July 2008

Dear Mary

Your problems solved

Q. I have caught a cold from a senior member of the royal family. I feel sure there must be ways in which I can turn this to my social and/or financial advantage and I admit that I have deliberately been sleeping in a draught in order to prolong the symptoms. What do you suggest, Mary?

Name and address withheld

A. There are very few socially acceptable ways in which one can market such a condition or even use it to boost one’s status. For example if anyone said ‘Bless you!’ when you sneezed, it would be quite wrong to then remark on the provenance of your cold. Where charitable fundraising is concerned, however, it is a different matter and, if you act quickly, you could offer your services at some Tatler-y party. You could charge £50 a time to allow snobs eager to have this sort of rare intimate contact with royalty by baccillae to join you in a claustrophobic overheated booth within the party. The takings could then go to charitable causes and tongues would wag as to how you were in a position to catch the cold in the first place. Naturally you would refuse to be drawn on this issue.

Q. I would be quite happy never to go out to dinner again — especially now the summer nights are lengthening — but my wife works from home and always wants to accept invitations since she sees no one all day. I would not mind if the dinner parties we went to were not so formal, but in this neck of the woods they tend to be, and I dread sitting upright at a table for hours at a time. Often the woman who has given the dinner party tends to relax at the end of it and forget all about the coffee which, of course, is the cue for everyone to move to softer seating and from there it is easier to escape to home. Is there a way in which one can remind a hostess that it is time for coffee without appearing to be bossy or a control freak?

Name withheld, West Lothian

A. When you arrive at these dinner parties tell your hostess that you really admire her for having had the energy to give it and you absolutely insist on doing something to help. She will invariably reply, ‘It’s all done, just relax and enjoy yourself.’ To which you can reply, ‘No. I insist. I’ll tell you what. I’ll be in charge of making the coffee at the end, how about that? That means you can relax after pudding.’ She will not only be grateful to you but is unlikely to suspect your motive.

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