Q. Please advise me. I have a friend whose mobile has no signal when she is at home. When I ring her landline her father always says he will pass the message on that I have rung but he often forgets. She does not call me back and I do not like to annoy her father by ringing again in case she is still not in. He always says, ‘No problem. I’ll make sure she gets the message,’ but he always seems to forget.
P.W., Wiltshire
A. Say ‘Would it be all right if I call back in a bit? I’m going somewhere where there is no signal so she won’t be able to call me on my mobile. So when would be a good time to call again?’ Precede the call you make later with 141 so as to disguise the fact that you are indeed ringing from your mobile.
Q. My husband has developed an unfortunate verbal tic. He uses the expression ‘If you know what I mean’ with maddening regularity. I have tried to retrain him when at home by repeatedly saying, ‘Yes, I do know what you mean,’ but it does not seem to work. I can hardly undermine him when we are out with other people and I hear him using this expression about twice a minute. Incidentally, my husband himself concedes that his tic is getting out of hand. The trouble is, as he says, ‘It is rather an appropriate sequitur to virtually everything one says.’
Name and address withheld
A. Write the words ‘If you know what I mean’ in black felt tip on a sequence of peel-off envelope labels and stick them around the house above every light switch, on the fridge door and above your laptop and television screens. You will soon see an end to the nuisance.
Q. I like to keep my eye on the time but I find that even the slightest glance at one’s watch seems to be noticed by whoever one is with and they don’t like it one bit. My wife once gave me a ring watch which is much easier to glance at unobtrusively but it looks a bit gay and this too gives off the wrong message.
A.G., London W8
A. The answer to this problem is that you must equip yourself with a Braille watch which you can tamper with discreetly under your shirt cuff without ever losing eye contact with your interlocutor.
Q. I am working flat out for a tutoring agency in the run-up to GCSEs. My agency has offered me a weekend residential posting in a stately home which I have always wanted to see inside. I accepted, even though the subject I need to tutor in is chemistry, at which I got a B in GCSE. Should I turn down this social-climbing chance of a lifetime, Mary? Or is there a way around it?
Name and address withheld
A. If it matters to you that much and if you have time then it will be worth the investment of your hiring a tutor yourself to give you a crash course in GCSE chemistry. If your tutor deems you still unfit to proceed then I am afraid you must turn down the posting. Any social advantage gained in the short term would be lost in the long if exam failure were to ensue. You would then be the focus of resentment within the stately walls.
If you have a problem write to Dear Mary, c/o The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP.
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