Q. My very green sister-in-law delivered Christmas presents to our children this year by taking a train to our local station then cycling five miles from the station with the presents on her back in a jute bag. Each one was wrapped, not in paper but in cloths, which she asked me to retain, suggesting I use them to wrap her own children’s presents for Christmas 2010. This made me feel bad since the week before I had already delivered (by car) presents to her children in traditional ‘toxic’ non-biodegradable wrapping paper. I also find it slightly oppressive to have to think about these eco-friendly wrapping cloths for a further year before I can get rid of them. What are the rules on wrapping paper, Mary? Is it now a breach of etiquette to use traditional paper?
Name and address withheld
A. The rules are that as traditional wrapping paper has turned out to be very eco-unfriendly and does not break down at the dumps, presents in this paper should preferably be wrapped with ribbon or string, not sellotape, so it too can be ironed and recycled. However, your sister-in-law’s green-ness has a whiff of theatricality about it. Being a stage green and trying to wrong-foot others, especially during the season of goodwill, is in itself a breach of etiquette.
Q. Someone hacked into my computer and sent an email to everyone in my address book. The email appeared to come from me and had words to the effect of ‘I recently found a very good site whose products are cheap. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.’ It then gave a link to this site. This unleashed a tsunami of old friends emailing me saying, ‘A bit baffled by your email but great to hear from you.
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