Q. The other night I took my parents to an upmarket eatery to celebrate my birthday. The food, wine and service were exceptional, but the music was so loud that one had to shout to be heard. My father suffers from slight deafness and had great difficulty hearing the conversation. Two polite requests to turn the volume down were met with straight refusals, which ruined the evening for my father and left us all feeling a bit flat. Given the trend of increasingly loud music in restaurants, is there any advice you can give those of us who prefer to talk to, rather than shout at, those we’re eating with?
N.P., Perth, Western Australia
A. Some diners prefer background music to become foreground since mental vacuity can thereby be masked. If a restaurant refuses to turn it down, pleasantly ask them kindly to suspend the preparation of your dishes while you quietly use GPS on your mobile to identify a nearby restaurant without music. If you can find one, you will decamp to this with your party. This will give them time to reconsider the refusal. Although it is unfashionable to eat in a hotel restaurant, it is usually possible a) to get a table, b) to find staff who understand the pecking order i.e. the customer is at the top of it, not the posing employees, and c) to find an atmosphere which is more hushed than noisy. These days deafness is not confined to the elderly since many of the young have own-goaled it by listening to overloud music through headphones.
Q. A friend of my boyfriend has invited us to stay. Access to where he lives is by private jet only and he will send his own to collect us from the international airport. Now I have had a call from his PA asking for my passport details; number, date of expiry and worst, date of birth. How can I supply this PA with the true details without her passing them on to her boss who might then mention the truth to my boyfriend? Would it be safe to lie?
Name and address withheld
A. You cannot lie as even small airfields can tap into the international data bank and check your passport details. Any inaccuracies may be spoken aloud to the pilot within your party’s earshot and make him liable to a penalty. Just give the true age gladly. The sooner your boyfriend finds out, the better. He either likes you or he doesn’t.
Q. Now that summer is here, every day when I get back from work, after 50 minutes in the Tube, I like to be able to unwind by reading the newspaper in my small back garden. Unfortunately the woman who lives in the house whose garden backs onto mine has recently taken to sitting in her garden at the same time and ringing her mother and various friends for a ‘daily catch up’, which consists of exactly the same information being belted out at top volume to at least six recipients. It is her garden, but Mary, do you have any idea how I can restore the previous tranquillity of mine?
R.B., Highgate, London
A. Enter your garden at a time when your neighbour is not speaking but you know she is in hers. Ring yourself from your mobile (by using the alarm), answer it and say in loud mock whisper. ‘Can I ring you back? I’m in the garden and I don’t want to disturb the neighbours by talking.’ Carry on until she gets the message.
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