Q. Six years ago a rather glamorous man bought the house opposite me. Although he always responds to requests for contributions to the residents’ committee, he has yet to attend a meeting or garden party. We know he lives alone and, according to his otherwise discreet servant, there are no other visitors to the house. How can I satisfy my curiosity and let him see that I am an affable sort of person with whom he would certainly like to be friends?
— Name withheld, London SW3
A. Next time you know he is in the house, why not ‘accidentally’ damage the wing mirror of his car? Wing mirrors, like dislocated shoulders, can be easily relocated, but pretend you do not know this and turn up on his doorstep to apologise and offer to pay for the damage. Insist that he comes to your house for a drink so that you can apologise properly. One reason why he has not attended the meetings may be the fear, as a single man, of being swamped by invitations. However if you are, as you say, affable, perhaps he will be less anxious once he has got the measure of you.
Q. I have been sending a couple a Christmas card every year since I’ve known them, but in the later part of this year the husband died. Is it tactless to send a card to his widow, even eschewing adjectives such as ‘merry’, ‘happy’ or ‘joyful’? If not, doesn’t one risk her feeling forgotten or deleted from one’s list?
— K.B.P., Caterham
A. Instead of a traditional Christmas card, why not send a greeting-free version, purchased from a museum shop or art gallery, and showing an appropriate seasonal image? Sign it ‘with loving thoughts’.
Q. Your correspondent of 14 September asked for advice on what to do when finding herself an involuntary eavesdropper on a train where fellow passengers are being rude about a close friend of hers. May I present a rival solution which I have used to splendid effect myself? Taking out my mobile, I pretended to dial said friend, asked for her very clearly by name, as though speaking to a secretary, repeated the name and then left a message asking her to call me back urgently on my mobile as I had something important to say. I then buried my head in the most recent issue of The Spectator. This had an immediate effect: deafening silence and visible discomfort from the offenders, who had no way of knowing how much I had heard, yet were unable to challenge me. I felt I had also had the satisfaction of defending my friend — though of course, I never let her know anything about it.
—G.W., by email
A. Thank you for this solution, which would indeed be useful provided the strangers on the train were not savages of any kind.
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