Dear Mary: What’s the best response to a patronising man?

Q. I have some fairly new friends who very generously invited me to stay with them in Turkey. They told me who would be coming and I was slightly dreading meeting up again with one man I haven’t seen since we were much younger. He was always patronising and a bit misogynistic, and – as I was to discover – is even more insufferable now he has become successful. Everyone was lying by the pool and he asked me what I was reading. When I showed him – a fairly undemanding classic novel – his comment was: ‘Gosh, well done!’ I was infuriated but the only responses I could think of would have caused bad vibes within the very relaxed house party. So I said nothing. How could I have upbraided him without others thinking that I was uncivilised? 

– S.D., Amersham, Bucks

A. You might have replied pleasantly, in reassuring tones: ‘Oh, you shouldn’t doubt your abilities. I’m sure it’s well within your bandwidth. Would you like to borrow it when I’ve finished?’

Q. My wife is having a lengthy course of medical treatment. A very kind cousin, who lives nine miles away, is trying to help out and frequently phones asking me to come and pick up casseroles she has cooked for us. While we really appreciate these generous gestures, I am finding the 18-mile round trips, always through bad traffic, more exhausting than making the meals myself. Sometimes it takes me the best part of a morning, as I feel I should stay for a cup of coffee and a chat. How can I manage to get out of making these trips without seeming ungrateful? 

– T.G., Petersfield, Hants

A. Before the next summons, gush to your cousin about how unbelievably kind she has been and also, incidentally, how some amazing new neighbours have started to bring stews, soups and cakes to your door at such a rate you can barely manage to get through them. Your cousin will understand that you can’t possibly offend the neighbours by rejection. Say you will be in touch if the fridge is bare. 

Q. Our daughter was 23 a few weeks ago and she brought a group of friends home, some of whom we knew and some we didn’t. We had a dinner on the Saturday night for which my wife made beef wellington, and I chose some Lynch-Bages from a good year to accompany it. During dinner I heard one of the male guests say to the girl beside him: ‘Can you pass the plonk?’ I didn’t react but I now wish I had. 

– R.J., Lewes, Sussex

A. You could have made a show of politely standing up and pushing your chair back, saying: ‘Plonk? Of course. I think we have some in the kitchen if you’d prefer that?’