Once again Mary has invited some of her most distinguished readers to submit Christmas queries.
From: Sir Norman Rosenthal
Q. I have an old friend who for some years has run an art gallery near Bond Street. I must have said something bad about him to somebody. It clearly got back to him and after a very unpleasant letter he has crossed me off his invitation and party list. This makes me very sad, as I now never get to see his artists who are all friends of mine. I am also very close to the gallery owner’s mother-in-law. She is well into her nineties, but very active, and we often go to concerts together. My wife does not object. After the concert I take her home in a taxi. She holds my hand and once said to me, ‘Norman, you and I, we are an item!’ She says, however, that she can do nothing about her son-in-law. Is there anything I can do to restore peace, especially during this season of goodwill?
A. Enlist the help of a happening artist whom this galleriste might wish to attract to his stable. Use him/her as a Trojan horse to smooth your arrival in the gallery on a weekday just before luncheon. Enter together, you proffering a bottle of good champagne as you walk forward to confront your old friend in magnanimous mode. Say ‘I’ve decided to forgive you. Will you forgive me?’ Before he can answer, move emotionally forward into hugging position while he stares over your shoulder and into the face of the artist he may wish to attract.
From Rachel Johnson
Q. As the so-called festive season is upon us, how can we prevent our husbands from using the word ‘we’ instead of ‘you’, as in ‘Have we done the children’s stockings?’/ ‘Have we ordered the Fortnum’s crackers?’ The implication is ‘it is your job but we will both take credit for having done it’. This is not just a seasonal query, Mary, it applies throughout the year.
A. Why not make a small investment in a household blackboard? You can then react to these taunts pleasantly by saying ‘Be a luv and pop it on the blackboard.’ The very act of writing down the chore, then constantly viewing it there in his own handwriting, should heighten the husband’s sense of shared responsibility.
From Dom Anthony Sutch
Q. The late Cardinal Hume noted that Christians were to be in the marketplace but not of it. Paul of Tarsus noted that for a message to be heard someone had to preach. My own circumstances find me accepting offers to talk and give speeches in a variety of places. Recently I spoke after dinner at the Mansion House, also to the Flyfisher’s Club, and in the Vintners, London. All were accompanied by superb victuals. Murmurings of ‘he is a glutton and a drunkard’ could be surmised. Other times, when refusing requests to speak, mutterings of ‘he is too high and mighty, beyond himself’ are discernible. How does one persuade people to forget the messenger and concentrate on the message?
A. The concentration on the messenger rather than the message is a by-product of the celebrity culture. It is by no means confined to hypocrisy-detectors seeking to do down clerics but is also noted by writers who wonder why, when their own ‘messages’ have been carefully quintessentialised into book form, there are so many literary festival audience members anxious to hear the same thing in a sloppier form while staring at the writers with suspicious looks on their faces. However, it is thought that the celebrity boom has now peaked and the false value put on fame, rather in the same way as it once was on tulips, may begin to give way so that once again people will quite naturally concentrate on the message rather than the messenger.
From Charles H. Cecil
Q. I direct a private atelier in Florence where students learn the skills of drawing and painting from life. Ours is a tradition linked to John Singer Sargent and the use of sight-size, a visual method rarely taught in art schools today. My students eschew photography and work directly from nature with the aim of conveying unity of impression rather than copying detail. The problem we face is illustrated in a recent newspaper article heralding a celebrity who has convinced himself that the masters relied on drawing aids. Almost as a litany of credentials, the article cites a host of devices he employs while painting: iPhone’s Brushes, Photoshop, Wacom tablets, jpegs and the multiple photographs taken by his full-time technology assistant. It seems that the digitally conditioned mindset has become the new criterion for excellence in fine art. So simply this: when a well-intentioned parent or guest visits the atelier and blithely praises our work for achieving photographic similitude — the very opposite of our aesthetic creed — how do I respond without appearing dismissive or rude?
A. Words can fail even Andrew Graham-Dixon when faced with great artistry. Therefore you cannot blame an anxious-to-please parent for their lack of critical fluency. Instead take the compsult (an insult intended as a compliment) in the spirit it was offered. Reply ‘But even better than a photograph, surely?’ Then wait, staying silent, in psychotherapist mode, as the parents babble their own way towards enlightenment.
From Matthew Parris
Q. Rightly or wrongly, men do find that close friendship with a gay man sometimes prompts speculation about the friend’s own sexuality. Yet many of my male friends are entirely heterosexual. Most need no help from me in reputation management but there are some, especially those encountering difficulties on the girlfriend front, about whom I worry lest our association compound their difficulties or deter desirable women from pursuing them. I’d just hate to feel, Mary, that I was (forgive me) queering their pitch, but whenever I’ve tried to drop into conversation jocund remarks designed obliquely to signal that a friend is not gay, the tactic has sounded heavy-handed. Do you have any tips for the gay man anxious — without self-oppression — to protect his straight friends from being thought gay-by-association?
A. Why not follow the admirable dictat of Quentin Crisp — ‘neither confirm nor deny your own sexuality, nor that of anyone else’.
From Cath Kidston
Q. At Christmas I give friends things from my own shop but I sometimes catch a little look that suggests they think that I have not paid and they therefore do not value them as highly as if they had come from another shop. The thing is, Mary, I obviously get a discount but I do have to pay for things I buy from my own shop.
A. Simply put the receipt into the bag with the present. Say ‘I did get a discount but you can swap it for something worth the full value if you like.’
If you have a problem write to Dear Mary, c/o The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP.
Comments