Q. We have friends who we would like to see much more of but when they come to dinner they always stay until 1 a.m. — often a full three hours after we have got down. This even when all other guests have left, saying they have to be up early and they know we do too. This couple (who were brought up in another country) show absolutely no qualms about keeping us up. Although we like them enormously, they are a rather grand and formal couple, and we are not yet on the sort of terms where we could...
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Q. I was interested to see Charles Moore’s italicisation of the word ‘patio’ in the issue of 30 July. We have a paved area in our garden at home, but my wife and I are unsure of what it should be called. What would you suggest? —S.B., Somerset
A. Charles Moore was writing about the Alhambra, where the courtyards are called patios, but the truth is that outside of such venerable buildings and Latin countries there is no acceptable expression for the type of paved area you mention. So unless it could be classed as a terrace, you only have...
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Q. We live in New Zealand and under our ‘business immigration scheme’ a delightful Korean family has moved into the neighbourhood. They are required to buy a business and provide local employment opportunities. Accordingly, they have bought a café, but they do not seem to have any knowledge of the hospitality trade, nor much English. My wife is helping their daughter with her English studies and, as a reward, they are delivering ample supplies of café muffins which can only be described as rocks. How can we tell them that these are inedible (and therefore unsaleable) without causing offence?
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Q. I am a governor of a top girls’ school in central London. When we are invited by the headmistress to school events by email, one of the other governors replies to every person in the group email. Obviously this reflects rather badly on my fellow governor — either she has not grasped the significance of the ‘reply to all’ box or she honestly thinks we are all interested in knowing that she cannot attend this summer’s junior ballet demonstration. How can we stop her doing this without causing offence? It is just another unwanted email.
—B.L., Harrow, Middlesex
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Q. I am one of eight retired golfers who once a week enjoy a sociable but not too serious game on our local course. Recently the wife of one of our group has taken to joining us and, although we are all good friends, we would prefer the weekly game to remain an all-male affair. To make it worse, the golfing wife is very competitive and is usually better than the rest of us. We do not want to sour relationships in what has become a very happy group. Can you suggest a good solution?
– P.B., by email
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Q. The Welsh have this annoying habit of turning up unannounced. I think it must derive from the days when they all lived in little terraces beneath the pits and the mines, and it was a come-one-come-all community. In 1978 I moved to England, but I still find that Welsh persons on occasion knock on my door and try to drop in. They think they are being ‘friendly’. I am a busy man, Mary. Worse, my mother, whom I have succeeded in not seeing for many years, keeps leaving messages on my wife’s mobile, to the effect that she...
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