Q. I was recently invited to stay with some well-heeled friends who were renting a house in Tuscany. Having cleared up any possible confusion about payment (I wouldn’t have to contribute to the rent), I accepted their invitation. Early one evening I was strolling on to the balcony of my bedroom, reading Juliet Nicolson’s A Perfect Summer, when I walked straight through a large metal mosquito net fitted across the doorframe. Sunglasses, iPod, panama and book were flung across the balcony as the entire structure collapsed around me. After several failed attempts to reassemble it and hearing my hosts calling me down for poolside drinks, I panicked and shoved the whole thing under the bed planning to tell the housekeeper (a charmless, surly Serb) later. I left the following day without doing so, but now back in London I am consumed with guilt. What a shabby way to repay my friends’ hospitality. Is it too late to own up? What should I do, Mary?
Name and address withheld
A. Clearly your uncharacteristically shabby behaviour was caused by the syndrome of Referred Aggression. Referred aggression is similar to referred pain. Had you been contributing to the rental costs, you would have undoubtedly given full vent to your reaction to this booby trap. (Had you been American you would have sued.) But because your friends were shelling out, you felt you could not complain. Your resentment was channelled, therefore, into the passive-aggressive response of not mentioning the damage. Ring to offer profuse apologies, saying you have only just remembered about the mosquito net and can’t think why you didn’t say anything at the time. You can only assume you were mildly concussed.
Q. My partner and I moved to Australia from London last November. We have been extremely gratified by the friendliness shown to us here, but find one local custom a nuisance: everyone takes bottle(s) of wine to friends when invited for a meal. Sometimes the same bottle does the rounds. Do you have any ideas on how we can stop this habit (only in our own social circle, not Australia-wide) without offending anyone?
D.A., Noosa, Australia
A. You could take a tip from a newly married English grandee who moved from London to an area of the country where there are very few ‘people’, so to speak. Restricted, when without houseguests, to interaction with a handful of neighbours, she came to a popular arrangement with some of the aforementioned. They would dispense with the courtesy of writing to thank for entertainments received. ‘Shall we have a pact?’ she suggested. ‘You don’t write to me and I won’t write to you. Otherwise we’ll be writing the same drivel to each other for the next 50 years.’ You can do the same with the wine custom. Far from this being a hostile suggestion, it is, in fact, an extra-friendly one as it assumes an anticipated intercourse of many years’ duration.
Q. I don’t understand how the tabloids can hack into one’s voicemail without one then missing the messages oneself. Can you explain, Mary?
Name and address withheld
A. They would listen to old or saved messages.
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