From Craig Brown
Q. As I get older I find myself more and more afflicted by dindinitis, which is probably best defined as a morbid dread of dinner parties. Within ten minutes of sitting down, I find that I am tongue-tied and so too is everyone else. Short of ‘You must give me the recipe’ or ‘we much prefer Waitrose’ or ‘Next time, you should try the B1033’, I can think of nothing to say. I don’t like to appear rude, Mary, but how can I refuse all further dinner parties without giving offence?
A. Bad dinner parties are like bad flights: one is enough to put you off for ever and start to promote a phobia. And even a good dinner party with scintillating fellow guests can be arduous if your social phobia is advanced. Actually there are perfectly good reasons for dreading these occasions — no one likes sitting upright between two strangers for three hours and then going out into the cold night to tackle the journey home — but most people are prepared to suffer for the sake of bonding and the abstract rewards which will come later. Lunches are quite different though as they offer the possibility of escape into daylight at any time and no need to feel guilty about leaving after 90 minutes. So why not ease yourself back into social life by refusing dinners but accepting, or offering, lunches?
From Arabella Weir
Q. I have a VERY FAMOUS, RICH, CLOSE FRIEND whose girlfriend’s birthday is on Christmas day. He and I usually exchange generous Yuletide gifts (his more generous than mine, for obvious reasons) but now that he is affianced I don’t want to cause offence by giving the same gift I ordinarily would, plus one. Should I acknowledge them as a couple and give them a dreaded joint gift? And should I also select an entirely different one for her, acknowledging thereby her birthday at the same time (even though I wouldn’t ordinarily be giving her a birthday gift if, for example, her birthday were, off the top of my head, 11 June), to show my beloved friend I am prepared to love her too? Or should I spare myself the expense and the angst?
A. Why not push the question of costs right out of the window by giving a purely celebratory, spiritually uplifting single present? What about a miniature garden in a biscuit tin, of the sort which gave the boy C.S. Lewis his first sense of numinosity? To an already well-off couple, this would mean more than having three lots of money thrown at them.
From P.J. O’Rourke
Q. I am problem-free at the moment but there is a large government nearby that seems not to have been told, ‘Never put anything in an email that you don’t want shouted from the rooftops.’ Isn’t there some way government functionaries could, for example, use a system of secret pre-arranged symbols to represent various words? Or should they do what my mother-in-law does when she doesn’t want anyone to understand her, and speak German?
A. Bletchley Park-type codebreakers, aided now by electronic means, would soon be on to such a system. No gentleman would condone the WikiLeaks, but since it is only a matter of time before our medical records and telephone conversations are available for full forensic scrutiny by all and sundry, we might as well take a view that the leaks have given us time to get used to the idea. After all, God did warn us, in Galatians and Ephesians: ‘All shall be revealed.’
From Ivor Braka
Q. About five times a year my wife and I give quite large informal parties for friends in the art world. My wife (who incidentally is much more forthright than I am) insists on going to bed at midnight. I like to get to bed before 1.30 a.m. but am left with the job of gently encouraging any stray guests to go. How do I do this tactfully and without causing hurt feelings?
A. For a solution, you need look no further than your own kitchen. I understand there is a six-foot python sleeping in a glass case there and that he welcomes the opportunity to come out at night for a bit of flesh encircling. When the appropriate moment draws nigh, why not bring this charmer up to your drawing room to introduce it to your guests? Most people are unfamiliar with the concept of snakes as household pets and, as this one’s tongue flicks about, they will wrongly assume their lives are in danger. They will beat an apologetic, but hasty, retreat to the front door, some of them screaming.
From Kit Kemp
Q. While visiting friends to deliver Christmas presents to put under their beautifully decorated tree, we sat for a while with them to partake in festive cheer. We had visited not only with our children but with our dogs too, and later we were mortified to discover that our dogs had opened half of the Christmas presents and eaten anything edible and chewed anything chewable. What is the etiquette of regaining both our and our dogs’ virtue in this situation?
A. People either love dogs or they don’t. Any dog lover will find it easy to forgive. Should they be dog haters, you can make amends by insisting on giving them a mini-break in one of your fabulously popular hotels. This will make them conflate the incident with pleasure. Do be careful, however, that in future you do not walk into honey traps half-deliberately set by friends unconsciously hoping for a similar result.
From Jacob Rees-Mogg
Q. Since the coalition started, I have come to think that the Conservatives and Lib Dems should form an electoral pact, but most of my friends think the Lib Dems to be Sons of Belial. What do you advise?
A. The coalition’s existence is a sign that old divisions are collapsing and that one day the lion will lie down with the lamb. You are moving with the times but your friends are not.
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