Q. A friend decided to celebrate her anticipated Christmas bonus by taking a day’s shooting and kindly invited me to be one of the guns. She emailed that most of her other guests were booked into the hotel near the estate for bed and dinner the night before. Would I like to book a room and a place at the table? My dilemma was that the shoot happens to belong to one of my greatest friends and the Scottish side of me recoiled at the thought of a hotel bill when I would be welcome in the house. I asked myself, would it be seen as pulling rank for me to stay in the house? By contrast, would it be patronising to the other guests for me not to stay there when it would have become obvious that I knew the shoot like the back of my hand? Mary, I fear I made the wrong decision. Please tell me now what I should have done.
Name and address withheld
A. The fact that you are a friend of the shoot’s owner was a red herring. In this case you should have stayed in the hotel with the other guns. It would have been divisive for you to stay in the house when part of the point of shooting is the camaraderie. Staying in the house would have been like choosing à la carte from your hostess’s menu. You should, instead, have accepted her ‘plate accompli’.
Q. We are three writers each of whom has recently published a new book. What is the correct response when friends come to your house at around this time and blithely ask you to give them a copy (grinning brightly as though they are doing you the favour by being interested)? People think writers have limitless free copies of their own book when in fact this is not the case.
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