Q. Sharing my name with a well-known property tycoon and philanthropist, I frequently receive invitations for dinners and other fund-raising events from organisations expecting a substantial contribution to their cause. I am not tight-fisted, Mary, but a minimum donation of £100,000 is something I can ill afford. The problem is that such amounts are rarely stated on the invitations themselves and organisers are not prepared to divulge anything on the telephone. No doubt some invitations are meant for me, but I tend to decline them all for fear of embarrassment. How can I work out whether invitations are truly intended for me or for my wealthy namesake?
D.R., address withheld
A. Rather than developing a phobia about these invitations, why not turn the confusion to your advantage. Use them as a pretext to telephone your namesake and have a laugh over which one of you the invitations might be aimed at and precisely what size of donation they might be looking for. It can do no harm for you to develop a friendship with a well-known property tycoon and philanthropist and you will start on a good footing since few people can resist feeling warm towards someone with the same name as themselves — especially someone with much less money.
Q. I have been invited to stay in an Austrian schloss wherein, I understand, the protocol is that it is correct to accept second helpings of every course at both lunch and dinner. I have a weight problem and should be on a diet. I wonder how I can gracefully decline these second helpings without giving offence to my hosts and their staff. Please advise.
G.A.W., Pewsey, Wilts
A. You are correct about this protocol but there is no requirement for guests to court obesity out of politeness. Since the dishes will inexorably make a second appearance, you must simply behave as the Austrians do themselves and take half the quantity you wish to consume the first time they are offered and the other half on the second presentation.
Q. I have been brought up to believe that air fresheners in lavatories are unacceptable. So deeply ingrained is this prejudice that I can’t help feeling that even the upmarket Jo Malone Room Spray might be borderline. I am forced to tackle the issue because my husband is going to start letting out our shoot and we will have innumerable people trekking through part of the house and using the lavatories. What should I do, Mary?
Name and address withheld
A. Air fresheners have never been acceptable. Their very presence in a lavatory is passive aggressive with the assumption that incomers will be producing odours which need to be masked. The real problem is the synthetic smells they themselves produce, to say nothing of their newly suspected link to Parkinson’s Disease. You might take a tip from one social leader who prefers to rely on beeswax polish. She ensures that the agreeable scent is all-pervasive by placing slimline items of wooden furniture in lavatories and keeping them highly polished. The beeswax is then dominant enough to mask any problems with ‘fallout’.
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