Q. I was at a private view the other night when a waiter dropped not just one glass but a whole tray of them. I was unsure what to do. Should I turn a blind eye while the waiter tackled the problem on his own or should I have lent a hand? I know that good manners would dictate that I should bend down and help to pick up the pieces but I felt that to do this might implicate me in the accident and so I moved away. Now I feel I behaved shabbily. What is the correct drill, Mary?
O.B., London W8
A. Instinctively, you behaved correctly. The last thing the waiter wants is for his accident to become the focus of attention at a party and for the momentum of chatting and interaction to be halted. There was practical help you could have offered. It would have been to use your shared status with fellow guests to marshal them away from the danger zone and distract them from it. Meanwhile you could have signalled to other waiters to provide back-up in the clearing-up procedure.
Q. I recently saw a titled man, on whom I am very keen but whom I have not seen for many months, coming down the Haymarket on a bicycle. I was on a bicycle myself and tried to speed up to catch up with him but he kept on darting ahead. Then I saw him in St James’s Street and the same thing happened. I was worried that if I called his name there might have been a danger that he would fall off. How could I have safely drawn his attention to me?
H.R., London SW11
A. You must accept that, painful though it is, you cannot accost people in all circumstances. You were extremely wise to play safe on this occasion.
Q. I recently flew from Belfast to Pisa, passing through Gatwick on the way. I was only carrying hand luggage. Once I had got through security at Belfast, I made the mistake of buying expensive blonde highlighting shampoos, forgetting that I would have to go through security again at Gatwick. There was nothing I could do except give the expensive shampoos to another blonde girl of my own age as they would not let me take them through departures at Gatwick. I tried to find a post office in Gatwick in order to post the shampoos to myself but was told that the post office at Gatwick is now shut and there is only a letterbox with a tiny slit in it. What else could I have done?
F.W., Florence
A. No containers with more than 100mls of liquid can go through security in hand luggage. To put your hand luggage into the hold with the shampoo within it would probably have attracted too great a charge. However, you could also have gone to the Boots in Gatwick and, showing them the receipt from the Boots at Belfast, asked them to change the shampoos for cleansing wipes or some other product which would meet with the security criteria. No doubt they would have co-operated. Finally, if you had time and, for example, you had bought expensive scent or something worth much more than shampoo, you could have taken a train to Crawley or Horley to post the products to yourself and then gone back to the airport.
If you have a problem write to Dear Mary, c/o The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP.
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