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Dear Mary

Mary Killen

Wednesday, 23rd July 2008

Your problems solved

Q. While staying for a weekend in a five-star Umbrian paradise south of Siena, you can imagine my horror when my breakfast partner recoiled at my pulling out my Baedeker on Siena. I always carry Baedeker when centreville-ing, but my companion expressed abject mortification and begged me to put it away. I consider myself to be a person of reasonably good lineage but did not realise it was bad form to have Baedeker in a public place. Can you rule, Mary?

A. It depends on whether you are interested in posing as so entrenched an habitué of Siena that you do not need Baedeker or whether you are more interested in self-improvement. You could do worse than to take your cue from the Florentine über-smartie, the late Sir Harold Acton, who openly boasted of ‘wearing out a Baedeker a year’ and could more often than not be seen openly wielding one as he accompanied visiting English friends around the art treasures of that city.

Q. A neighbour who I do not know well, but certainly well enough to invite to a drinks party, accepted our invitation with a pre-stamped reply card then failed to turn up on the day or ring to apologise. No doubt something more important came up and I would not normally be bothered, but I will inevitably meet this man on the platform of our local railway station and am slightly dreading the encounter. You see he is something of a celebrity and very much in demand at the moment. So it was marginally embarrassing and disappointing that he did not come since at least half my guests had their eyes trained on the garden gate as I had told people he was coming. I have now been left feeling like a celebrity-climbing imposter, so how should I retain my dignity when said celebrity patronises me in front of fellow commuters with an over-profuse apology?

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