Q. I am in the process of planning a party for my husband’s 60th birthday. We have excellent caterers in place but my problem concerns the place à table. We will have ten long tables in the marquee, each one seating 30 guests, but how can I possibly decide who should go beside whom? It is too large an event for precedence to play any part but I am already being leaned on by friends asking for either themselves or their children to be placed next to certain people they would like to know better. There is a lot of competition to be next to the same handful of people some of whom are — dread word — celebrities. How should I proceed?
F.P-G., Taunton, Somerset
A. Why not take a tip from Lord Marland, who recently entertained a similar number of guests at his 50th birthday party? As guests arrived they were directed towards two baskets, one containing blue cards for the men, one containing yellow cards for the women. Each card gave a table name and a seat number (even for the women, odd for the men) and this pot-luck system — the only feasible one in the circumstances — worked extremely well. Guests should be warned as they sit down that there is also a ‘wild card’ system at play so ‘don’t get too comfortable as you might be moved at any time’. This will enable you to intervene should any explosive human cocktails have been produced by the random system.
Q. The parking spots here in our village outside the post office and shops, though clearly marked, are few. On Saturday as I stood near the pillar box a gleaming scarlet open-topped e-type Jaguar was parked in front of me by a beaming fiftysomething driver ostentatiously stopping midway between two parking spots. Glowering at his thoughtless selfishness I gave him what in my family is known as ‘one of my looks’. Regrettably, the driver took this to be envy and beamed even more broadly. All I could do was wait until he went into the post office, then I kicked one of his tyres. What would have been the appropriate and effective response?
J.G., Quorn, Leicestershire
A. You should have beamed back pleasantly as you leaned forward in neighbourly manner to tip him off with the following piece of local knowledge: ‘Oh do be careful. The warden here is very unpredictable. He has really got it in for what he regards as flash cars. He might even give you a double ticket as you’ve parked in two places.’
Q. One of my colleagues is a professional sponger. I will stick to the most irritating and ill-mannered example. As he and I regularly travel to and from Brussels on Eurostar (though never together), he repeatedly asks me for my Business Lounge access card (and then trumpets about it throughout London as if he were really entitled to it). As he has once again taken my copy of The Spectator home with him (even before I have finished reading it!) he will undoubtedly recognise himself when he comes to read your column. With your seal of approval, hopefully this will be the end of that ‘joint’ card, as he likes to call it.
J.P.G., London SE11
A. His activities are harmless and easy ways for you to top up your friendship bonus points with him, but clearly he has forgotten to lay on some reciprocal favours. Next time tell him you have lent the card to someone else. Say ‘I really had to give him priority over you. He’s always doing me favours in return.’
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