Mary Killen Mary Killen

Your problems solved | 24 January 2004

Etiquette advice from The Spectator's Miss Manners

Dear Mary

Q. I believe I have fallen in love with another member of the VWH hunt. Whenever I go up to him on my horse, he has been friendly but since he hacks home I have only ever seen him mounted and with his riding hat on. I therefore have no idea what he looks like with it off, indeed whether he is totally bald. Neither do I know what he looks like in proper clothes, how tall he is or, most importantly, whether he might feel the same attraction towards me. I do know that he is unmarried, so what is my best course of action, Mary?
Huntress of West London

A. Take advantage of the fact that men are normally hopeless at planning their social life. Tell him you have a spare ticket for the Countryside Alliance Valentine’s Day party, which is being held at the Royal Academy School’s life-drawing rooms on 12 February. Would he like to come and see Stubbs’s model of Copenhagen, Wellington’s horse, and the cast of a flayed man? Alcohol will flow freely at this key bonding event in the countryside calendar, and although the tickets are £100 each it is rumoured that benefactors including Pickett, Thomas Pink, Emma Hope, Johnny Boden and Lulu Guinness have been so generous with their gifts for the take-home party bags that there is a good chance of recouping one’s outlay. (Tickets available on 01672 519470.) Time your arrival at the flayed corpse carefully so that you can swoon faintingly into his arms.

Q. Because I have been swaddling my ageing neck in cashmere by day I had something of a shock when planning what to wear for a forthcoming important event at which television cameras will be present and during which I will have to wear décolletage.

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