Q. Is there a tactful way to speed the departure of someone who has come for drinks only, but fails to leave when dinner is announced? Chatting to punters during my recent NGS open day, I made the mistake of boasting that a certain household name, who had been spotted in the area, was actually staying with me. One of these punters, a local and a friend of a friend, begged to meet her ‘absolute idol’ and proposed herself for drinks before dinner. Local and idol got on famously but local, having declined my wife’s suggestion that she stay on to dinner, showed no sign of leaving. She was not drunk but seemed oblivious to the frozen grins on our other six guests’ hungry faces as she chatted gaily on. Indeed she might still be there now had not one of her children telephoned her mobile to urge her to go home. This was a good 20 minutes after dinner was ready. What would have been the elegant way of handling this, Mary?
— Name and address withheld
A. Perhaps you could have combined flattery with strictness with the following overture: ‘In the immortal words of Harold Pinter “Must you go?”’ When she inevitably replied ‘Yes, I must’, your legitimate rejoinder would have been to sigh, ‘Well, if you insist, then go you must, as dinner is ready. Let me walk you to your car.’
Q. What is the etiquette on whether to attend the funeral of a dear friend’s parent, when one has not actually met the deceased? One really wants to be able to give emotional support to a friend on one of the toughest days of their life, but on the other hand it seems a bit creepy and voyeuristic to attend the funeral of someone one has never met. Asking is no good. The British response is invariably ‘That’s so sweet of you, but really you don’t have to’ whether they would absolutely love you to be there, or would rather that you were not.
—L.F., Surrey
A. The convention of attending the funeral of a stranger is well-established. People do it either to lend emotional support to the family, or their own personal authority, and thereby endorsement. The maxim ‘the more the merrier’ is especially true here. Why, even the gatecrashers who serially attend every send-off at St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street, presumably to enjoy the free refreshments afterwards, are usually welcomed by the family. They are generally well behaved, they boom out the hymns and although their goodwill may be incentivised by cupboard love, their presence nevertheless helps boost a sense of occasion. So, if you have the time and energy, the chief mourners will always prefer to see you swell the numbers rather than not to come on the grounds you had not met the deceased. So what? You have met their progeny.
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