Dear Mary: what is the perfect response to an awkward discussion?

Q. I recently joined our gardener during his tea break and asked: ‘What news? He replied: ‘We went to see Dad in his coffin yesterday – he looked very smart in his suit. It is amazing what they can do these days.’ I was quite unable to think of a suitable response – and still cannot. Any thoughts, Mary?

— R.H., Cheltenham

A. One good all-purpose response in these situations is to nod and murmur: ‘So they say… So they say…’

Q. I am a moderately successful journalist and sometimes friends ask me to help their children enter the trade. The problem is: after initial contact, usually by text or email, the children do not bother to follow up and I am left waiting by the telephone with a reading list. How do I tell my friends that if their children cannot make a telephone call to a friendly contact at an agreed time, journalism is probably not for them?

— Name and address withheld

A. These widespread slack attacks among talented youth are often nothing to do with laziness or a sense of entitlement but, paradoxically, reflect a lack of self-confidence. If you want to help, the best way to bill the opportunity is to ask if they would consider going into the office of a terribly overstretched media figure of your acquaintance, and helping them out as an act of kindness. Once given some starter chores to occupy them, they will bypass the anxiety hurdle and start performing to their potential.

Q. I do the occasional turn as an impressionist. My targets are well-known figures from stage and screen and political life. Every so often, at social occasions, I run into celebs who have not yet featured in my repertoire who plead with me to do my impression of them, insisting that they will not be offended.