Q. My boyfriend, an artist, is driving himself and others mad by his inability to keep track of his mobile. This he keeps putting down randomly on any old surface of his disorganised cottage, even though he knows there is signal only in certain places, so he can’t depend on locating it by hearing it when someone rings. Since he has also had the landline disconnected, it is often impossible to get through to him, but he seems unable to learn from his mistakes.
T.D., Burford, Oxfordshire
A. Next time you have access to this irritating man, programme the alarm feature of his mobile to go off, say, at 4 p.m. each day, in ascending loudness mode. An alarm will go off whether or not the mobile is within signal. Next time he loses it, all he has to do is stand quietly in his cottage at 4 p.m. and the phone will make its location known. Or if he has a sophisticated smartphone, note that some of these can be programmed so that an American voice will announce the time once an hour.
Q. A friend of mine who is a bit of a wine expert brought a double magnum of a rather old and grand Bordeaux to a dinner party at my house. Most of the guests knew each other very well but hadn’t seen each other in some time, so it was a very happy event. Unfortunately, the wine had not aged well. It was thin and didn’t taste very nice. Several of my guests looked rather wistfully at some perfectly good Chilean red on the sideboard but didn’t have the courage to suggest switching. How could we have managed to switch to the other red without offending our friend, who had generously brought what he thought would be a great wine ?
—Name and address withheld
A. Someone might have said: ‘I feel I should confess, a wine like this is wasted on me because I can never tell the difference between really good quality and plonk. I feel too guilty drinking this. May I switch to that Chilean red?’ When it was opened, he might have added, ‘Would anyone like a chaser of downmarket wine, just to highlight the superiority of the Bordeaux?’
Q. A very pretty friend of mine works on a fashion magazine. She spends all day in the company of a rather charismatic male fashion editor whom she worships. Unfortunately, this man is urging her to cut off her wonderful waist-length hair — which would be a disaster. Please advise.
— G.D., London WC2
A. Buy a pack of hairnets (£1.09 for two from Boots) and ask your friend to tuck her long hair into one, then look in a full-length mirror to see whether the scalping would be triumph or disaster. A hairnet allows a woman a graphic view of the change in overall proportions before she takes such an irreversible step.
Comments