Your Problems Solved | 5 February 2005

Dear Mary…

Q. I am becoming increasingly annoyed by friends and acquaintances who think it is acceptable to snort coke. At civilised dinner parties, we find increasingly that someone will bring it out in a pathetic attempt to show they are still young and groovy and rather good fun. Living in seedy west London and working with people whose relations have been murdered in turf wars, I am becoming more and more incensed at the irresponsibility of this behaviour by people who should know better but are well protected from the consequences of their actions. How do we deal with this without ruining everybody’s party?
Name and address withheld

A. Why not play devil’s advocate by blandly proposing a debate — ‘Does cocaine fall under the umbrella of Fair Trade? Could it feasibly be described as an ethical investment?’ Then sit non-judgmentally back and let the snorters arrive at the inevitable conclusions.

Q. What has happened to the nit nurses who used to be a feature of schools when I was a girl? As anyone with children at school will testify, the head lice problem seems to be out of control. I do not wish to keep polluting my children’s heads with dangerous chemicals, only for them to be reinfested a few days later by children whose parents have not bothered, now that there are no nit nurses to shame them into doing so.
S.R., Wantage

A. Nit nurses began to be phased out after 1974 when schools realised that the wording of health authority regulations about head inspections meant that these inspections could legally have constituted an ‘assault’ and compensation-seekers could pretend to have been traumatised by them. The consequence has been the current plague. Some parents claim that a natural method of defeating the lice is to coat the hair in mayonnaise and wrap the head in clingfilm or a bath hat for three hours.