Dear Mary | 23 July 2011

Your problems solved

Q. The Welsh have this annoying habit of turning up unannounced. I think it must derive from the days when they all lived in little terraces beneath the pits and the mines, and it was a come-one-come-all community. In 1978 I moved to England, but I still find that Welsh persons on occasion knock on my door and try to drop in. They think they are being ‘friendly’. I am a busy man, Mary. Worse, my mother, whom I have succeeded in not seeing for many years, keeps leaving messages on my wife’s mobile, to the effect that she plans to ‘call in’ one Sunday without warning. How can I avoid this terrible eventuality?

—R.L., Bromyard, Herts

A. I do not admire your childish stance regarding your mother. Many of us without mothers would do anything to have them dropping in without warning. It is a different matter where random Welshmen are concerned. Keep a notice on your gate reading: ‘Danger. Unexpected callers please return to main road and telephone to announce your arrival so security systems can be disabled.’ By using an old-style answerphone with loudspeaker you need only ‘pick up’ in response to welcome callers. With this method, you will at least have time to prepare yourself.

Q. I enjoyed Paul Johnson’s essay on pockets. He rightly observes that while Savile Row tailors give their male clients 17 pockets, women are given none and this is to their huge disadvantage. The handbag is a terrible invention which quite spoils a woman’s outline. Imagine Botticelli’s ‘Primavera’ with a bag — particularly one of those ‘designer’ ones which cost the same as a terrace house in the north-east. Yet women, myself included, need to carry things.