How to give gifts

1. Don’t try to compete with a super-rich host. You may have to sing for your supper but you are not expected to pay for it. Their ‘people’ will have ensured that everything they need for the purposes of entertaining you is already in place. Your 360g of Marrons Glacés (£64, Fortnum & Mason) will be surplus to requirements and will probably be given directly on by them to a member of staff. 

2. To broke students and underprivileged friends, of course bring wine – particularly if you are worried about being made ill by low-quality stuff they are likely to serve. 

3. Wanderpreissen, literally a wandering present, is an expression used in Germany to denote gifts which smack of impersonal re-gifting e.g. scented candles, panettone, stale soaps. A friend who gave a dinner for 50 people on her own 50th birthday received no fewer than 20 scented candles (which gave her low self-esteem). 

4. Flowers. By all means send these after the event, but don’t arrive with them. Your already flustered host will not have allocated time to gush and find an appropriate vase. 

5. Books. Even if you have written a book do not bring a copy to lunch or dinner as your host will not have the bandwidth to look at it/pretend to be interested.  

6. Do give presents when going to stay with people. If money is no object: Exmoor Caviar, 250g for £500. Orchids, available in Ikea, have lost their special status, so perhaps jasmine from Pulbrook & Gould, £175, delivered in advance. Photographer Christopher Simon Sykes used to print his best shots, make a bespoke album and deliver it retrospectively. Do the same but use a non-digital camera and stick the photos into an album. 

7. The penniless house guest. A small wooden jigsaw puzzle from Wentworth (from £26 for 190 pieces) is invaluable in a house party as jigsaws promote low-pressure bonding. Ferrero Pocket Coffee are individually wrapped treats enrobed in dark chocolate. Put one into your mouth and a dose of espresso floods into it. These are available between October and May, £4.50 for ten. Stock up on lacy tights at Shepherd’s Bush Market for £2.50 a pair instead of £40 at Wolford. LED loop-up light switches from St Helens Home and Garden are £5 each and ideal for handbags, dark cupboards and power cuts. 

8. Passive aggressive presents. Any herb in a pot bought from a petrol station when your host already has a greenhouse full. Chocolate penises. Just don’t. 

9. Don’t panic on your way to lunch or dinner if you suddenly realise you will be arriving empty-handed. A straw poll I took of leading hosts revealed that not only does none of them ‘want anything’ but I’m afraid they generally consider it ‘common’ to bring something on such occasions. ‘I’ve brought myself,’ pronounced one grandee when arriving, in the wake of other present-laden guests, in the hall of another stately. 

10. Remember that you have been invited because your host likes you.