Q. Now that eco-issues are so fashionable my husband has come out as a militant meanie on energy conservation. Meanwhile our three teenage daughters use absurd amounts of hot water each day and leave their laptops and televisions on. They also prance about in the skimpiest clothes imaginable, which means they always want the heating on full blast. Mary, how can I tackle these incompatibilities so that I can conserve some of my own energy and not have to dissipate it all on resolving domestic disputes?
A.B., Pencaitland, East Lothian
A. Stimulate your daughters’ own interest in conserving energy with the purchase of a Wattson O1 energy monitor. (£149.50 from www.electricity-monitor.com). This minimalist, packet-of-butter-sized device is easily fitted to your mains cable. Henceforth it will reveal, on an attractive LED display, exactly how much wattage is being consumed by the household at any one time. The whole family will soon be transfixed as the display changes from red (bad) through violet (average) to cool blue (good). Your daughters will swiftly become addicted to the ‘reward fix’ of seeing the numbers tumble to a desirable target of less than a thousand watts (blue) as they rush about the house turning things off. You will soon see them clad in sensible woollies to achieve this aim.
Q. I am helping to organise my brother’s 18th birthday party. Too late we find out that our grandmother has given him the ‘treat’ of booking an old-timer’s band which can only play waltzes, etc. None of us wants to hurt Granny’s feelings but none of my brother’s generation can do that sort of dancing. How can we avert this disaster?
Name and address withheld
A. Turn the problem to your advantage by putting the word around that everyone must try their best to make a fist of waltzing so as not to disappoint the well-meaning granny. Enliven the proceedings by kicking off with a traditional holly and balloon waltz. Herein the men have holly strapped to their backs, the women balloons, and the woman who survives the longest without her balloon being burst will be the winner of a prize. Everyone will be secretly delighted to be forced into old-fashioned intimate physical contact with their dancing partners. You can even make a feature of the debacle by giving out dance cards, bossily doing the first three partnerings yourself to counteract shyness. Your naive-seeming granny may turn out to be cleverer than you think.
Q. I have a problem which has caused great annoyance and occasionally embarrassment to me for as long as I have known how to write. The problem is, I never seem to have the same handwriting twice. I don’t mean just a small difference in the way I do certain letters, but I mean that paragraph by paragraph or sentence by sentence, it is like a completely different person is writing. It was a major problem at school as my teachers constantly thought I was bullying other students into doing my prep for me. Now a 19-year-old university student, I thought it was something I would have grown out of. Alas no. What should I do Mary?
F.B., Edinburgh.
A. Simply enrol on a calligraphy course and learn to do fast cursive italic script. This will equip you with a consistent, visually attractive hand. The 20-hour course costs around £125.
Comments