Dear Mary… | 22 April 2006

Q. I work in a City office, staffed mainly by young, trendy middle-class males, most of whom like to sport the silly fashion of trousers almost dropping off, exposing vast expanses of undergarments, in some cases almost bare buttocks! We girls don’t have a problem with this, but are disgusted by one young man who is obviously wearing the same underpants for several days, in fact almost two weeks — not a pretty sight. How do we politely approach him with a view to suggesting he become more hygienic with his personal grooming?
S.J., London NW2

A. One of you should send a round-robin email. ‘Lost within the office, an unopened packet of Calvin Klein Anime woven black-and-white boxer shorts bought as a present and mislaid somewhere in the building. Has anyone seen them?’ Later the sender can stroll past the offender’s desk and casually inquire, ‘Did you see my email? — Not that they’d be any use to you. Everyone knows you’re devoted to your Bodens or whatever they are. Do you have hundreds of pairs, all exactly the same?’

Q. Being rather behind in my Spectator reading, I have just come across your advice page from 9 April 2005 regarding the thorny problem of addressing those who are the unmarried others of one’s relations. I like to use the gem of a phrase coined by Clark Gable, in a marvellous little film called It Started in Naples, wherein he addresses the mother of his brother’s child as ‘my sister-not-in-law’ although, admittedly, I do not usually use it when the person concerned is within earshot.
Name and address withheld

A. Thank you for suggesting this concisely descriptive tool.

Q. A dinner guest, a charming, intelligent and cultured guest, who knows that my wife is a gourmet cook and that we appreciate good wines, a guest who has lived much of his life in France, indeed who still does, has astonished us this week by bringing to our party two bottles of Budgens specially selected Lambrusco 4 per cent.