Q. How can you have people to stay the night — but not the next day as well? My parents have bought a flat in London. They have given my brother and me keys so we can use it when we want. This is amazing but the problem is that the flat is really central so our friends from university always want to stay after we have been clubbing or even just in the pub. Then, while my brother and I are trying to work, they hang around until they are ready to go out again.
— S.H., London W1
A. There is an 8 a.m. Mass at Farm Street Church every day of the week with additional later ones at 11 on Saturday and 9.30 on Sunday. Why not get into the habit of going to mass on mornings when you need to shift layabouts? Then you can welcome friends to stay the night with great eagerness but also with the proviso that, as there are no spare keys, they leave when you do in the morning so you can lock up and set the alarm. Simply smile enigmatically when they question why you are going to mass or why they can’t just stay in bed till you get back from it. Are you going on somewhere afterwards? Refuse to be drawn.
Q. May I pass on a tip to readers? Ever since I have been carrying around a Daunt’s bookshop bag I have had a huge number of friendly overtures from people on public transport. There is clearly a lot of goodwill towards Daunt’s among literary folk and therefore this is the most ‘communicative’ bag one can carry.
— B.B., London W8
A. It might not be Daunt’s so much as just the carrying of one of the few possible literary signalling devices. You might achieve the same effect with a Hay Festival or a Lutyens & Rubinstein bag, although, for some reason, a Waterstone’s bag would not strike quite the right note.
Q. For the first time in ten years, I have not received an invitation to London’s top summer party. No event is more defining of social status and I dread to think what my husband and I might have done to annoy the hosts or why our currency should have been devalued to this extent (although I suspect it is because we have both put on a lot of weight). How can I find out what we have done wrong?
— Name and address withheld
A. Do not bother finding out. It is good that your complacency has been punctured. Being invited to this party every year was clearly giving you a bogus sense of endorsement linked only to social acceptability. You should embrace the rejection and use it as an opportunity to question your moral accountability and year-end achievements in terms of kindness to others. Even if next year you fail to make the cut again, the action will still have been worth taking.
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