Q. I was sitting in a South West train the other day. A woman across the aisle was making nonstop calls into her mobile phone, speaking very loudly in what sounded to me like Cantonese. I found it excruciating. I could not think, I could not read, I could not do anything. I did not want to give up my window seat and move to another carriage. I finally flipped, went over and said, ‘Could you please speak more quietly?’ The woman looked very surprised and quite angry but from then on she spent the rest of the journey texting. I found the incident exhausting. It was 30 minutes or so before it was resolved, so I wondered if there is a way in which it is possible to tip people off — right at the very beginning of their first call — that they are speaking far too loudly?
A.C., Beaminster, Dorset
A. This problem can be remedied in homeopathic form. Ring your own mobile from your own mobile. Since you are engaged, it will go instantly to answerphone. Instead of leaving a message let the mobile pick up the offender’s squawking for 60 seconds or so. Then dial in for your messages and play this one on loudspeaker. Hearing his or her own voice squawking out will disconcert the offender to the extent that the solution is instantly resolved.
Q. Having lost my job a few months ago, I decided to give being a cleaning lady a try. I can strongly recommend it. You spend time in other people’s comfortable and interesting houses and, although it is not that well paid, it is very satisfying work. But Mary, is there a way in which I can make it clear, from the beginning, that I am a totally honest person?
B.C.L., London W12
A. With a very modest investment of, say, two pounds in coins of your own money, you can leave these on a surface as though they had been randomly collected from down the backs of sofas and under carpets. This will make the impression you require.
Q. I have been called a ‘yummy mummy’, but my problem recently has been that I simply cannot afford the clothes anymore. My husband and I have both taken cuts in salary and with three children at school I cannot justify buying the sorts of clothes I used to. This really hurts. However the other day I visited the Lost Property section of my daughter’s boarding school in search of a lost sports hoodie. There I saw a stack of unclaimed, unidentified items of clothing, much of it designer, clearly all things ‘borrowed’ by the girls from their unfortunate mothers. I was very tempted to claim ownership of a dozen or so items which will probably go unclaimed, since there is a tradition at this school that it is ‘uncool’ to visit Lost Property. Mary, would you have endorsed my helping myself in this unique situation?
Name and address withheld
A. Logical as it might seem for you to give the abandoned clothing a second life, it would still be theft. Petty theft, perhaps, but still a contaminant. Instead of letting these clothes go to the dump, why not suggest that unclaimed items be handed to you at the end of term and you will run a second-hand sale with the proceeds going towards the school library or something? At this point you can have first choice and buy the top items from yourself.
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