Q. Since I now live alone and have spare bedrooms my house in London has become something of a destination for old friends who want to stay overnight. I love seeing them. I love making them welcome and giving them drinks and food if they want it but the one thing I have to admit I do resent is the domestic drudgery aspect. I cannot bring myself to pay the going rate for a cleaner and it seems to take four hours or more to bring the house up to scratch. Even if people left tips — for some reason those who do in the country never seem to do it in London — they would be unlikely to leave £60 which is roughly what I would have to shell out to professional cleaners to come in for four hours on a random basis. What do you suggest, Mary?
Name and address withheld
A. When your friends arrive ensure that a vacuum cleaner blocks their passage as they come into the house. Draw their attention to it and explain that you were just in the middle of cleaning up, having broken off from some boring paperwork which took longer than expected. Leave various cleansing agents propped visibly throughout the house and cleaning fluid and cloth in the bath they will be using — in a display hygenus interruptus as it were. Appear to be faintly distracted. Far from being insulted by the mess your friends will be reassured by the visible evidence of cleaning intentions. In any case it will be no bad thing if there is a degree of inadequacy in the facilities you offer. It will restore the balance of your relationship so your friends do not feel too jealous of you nor that you have too much of an upper hand in your patronisation of them with these very convenient lodgings.
Q. I am published by Bloomsbury. I know that other Bloomsbury authors, most volubly Joanna Trollope, feel the publisher is too ‘J. K. Rowling-centric’ and are dissatisfied with the amount of attention and marketing they receive themselves. I have always been quite happy with Bloomsbury but, could you advise me, Mary, should I follow Joanna Trollope’s lead? Is there any truth in these allegations?
Name and address withheld
A. No, but as Max Beerbohm observed — every author is dissatisfied with their publisher because every author thinks, ‘this book will make my fortune and make the world think more highly of me,’ and, of course, their dream does not come true. At least if you stay with Bloomsbury, you have the perfect excuse for your lack of success — ‘all the attention has been diverted to J.K. Rowling’ you can say. What is more, you can be glad that, thanks to J.K. Rowling, your advance from Bloomsbury will have been roughly double what it would have been without her being part of your stable.
Q. Further to the solution offered about how to cope with unwelcome singing in a communal shower at the pool (29 March) — I believe the strategy you suggest is exactly how antisocial behaviour is communicated to the offender in the longhouses of Borneo, where people live in divided cubicles with thin enough walls so everyone can hear each other chatting. So one person will say, in a very loud voice, ‘Isn’t it terrible how some people take more than their share of rambutan at breakfast time?’ Everyone else agrees and makes disapproving noises. The culprit, shamed but unconfronted, then sins no more.
A.F., Marrickville, Australia
A. Thank you for endorsing my advice.
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