Q. Any more tips on how a lonely bachelor can improve his social life? Your recent advice that I should send out a round-robin email saying ‘I’ve had the all-clear’ backfired. I did get loads of calls but many of them were from people who assumed I had been suffering from an STD.
— E.W., London
A. Nevertheless, the response has proved my theory that, as a single, good-looking and solvent man, you are bound to be in demand and that as such people will welcome having an excuse to ring you up. Try another method of giving them one which was recently used, inadvertently, by another bachelor, who said yes to an email asking if he would recommend a new cab-calling service he had used? Tommy Tucker (not his real name) did not scroll down before replying, and had not realised that saying yes would give the company the green light to ‘harvest’ all the email contacts in his phone. Consequently 750 people received an email saying ‘Tommy Tucker wants you to try this cab company’. ‘I have had hundreds of emails from people asking if I own the company and at the same time asking me to dinner,’ reveals Tommy.
Q. My new boyfriend has everything going for him, except that he talks with his mouth full. He is 26 so it is a bit late for him to be learning table manners. His own family background was that they all ate separately in front of the television. Do you have any suggestions as to how I could civilise him without seeming like a terrific snob?
— Name and address withheld
A. One way to retrain romantic partners with this problem is to have them to a series of lunches with uncivilised small children. In this way you devise a platform from which to tell the children off — in a kindly way, of course — and to explain the concept of table manners. As a novice table-eater, your boyfriend may not know. One of the children is bound to say ‘But he is talking with his mouth full!’, at which you can evince surprise and say ‘Oh, so you are! I hadn’t noticed. Would you like me to say a code word each time you do it so you can stop?’
Q. An artist friend has made me a present of a very large painting she has done. She is a successful artist, but I do not like this painting. I would never wish to hurt her feelings but I really do not want to hang it in my house to which she is a frequent visitor. Any suggestions?
— Name and address withheld
A. If you own another house which she does not visit, photograph it hanging there in prime position. Failing that, have attractive antique glass affixed to its back by a competent framer. Let it double as a mirror, turning it round only in anticipation of her visits to your house.
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