Q. I disagree with your advice to A.B. (8 September) about enlisting a restaurant management’s support to go on smoking his cigar despite the displeasure of the nearby patrons. We can assume that they booked in the garden because they liked the fresh air. The etiquette for any cigar smoker has always been to ask the people around him if they would mind before he lights up.
—J. McC., Geneva
A. This protocol will often backfire, as so many people do mind. However, cigar rooms and lounges are becoming de rigueur in top hotels. The Lanesborough and Bulgari boast the facility, as will the new Wellesley Hotel in Knightsbridge, which is about to open with a lounge and terrace offering one of the world’s largest collection of cigars. When you are not in one of these protective bubbles, however, a graduate of the Davidoff Ladies Masterclass in cigar-smoking says: ‘Do not ask if anyone minds if you smoke a cigar. Ask if they mind if you enjoy one. This makes people feel more churlish about refusing.’
Q. I have a problem with a charming couple who have recently settled here from France. We enjoyed each other’s company at once but when I visited them at home the evening was jarred somewhat by my involuntary bad manners, when the main course appeared in the form of Scotch eggs. These they had got in as a treat for me, having learned that I am from a Lowlands family. I associate this dish with Sunday night suppers at my public school, where I was unhappy, and after two mouthfuls was unable even to feign culinary appreciation. I saw my host and hostess both stare at the two thirds uneaten sphere as they took my plate away before producing some excellent cheeses, slices of which I devoured with exaggerated relish. But what was I to do?
—J.H., London SW3
A. Handmade Scotch eggs are newly fashionable and bear no relation to the plastic versions of yore. The friendship with this couple was too young for you to be able to burst into tears and explain your phobia, so instead you should have been man enough to bite the bullet, as it were, and simply choke the dish down.
Q. I need to write to the new Archbishop about something. I was his exact contemporary at school but we hardly ever met or spoke. Should I write ‘Dear Bishop Justin’, which would be correct but distant, even unfriendly, if he remembers me, or ‘Dear Justin’, which would be impertinent if he doesn’t? I don’t want to say anything about our contemporaneity as that would be rather fatuous.
—Name and address withheld
A. Even if you thought he would remember you very well, it would be appropriate in this first letter to celebrate his elevation by writing ‘Dear Bishop Justin’.
Comments