22 May 2004

Dear Mary Q. Here’s a solution to noisy New Zealand neighbours having barbies in the garden late at night. The last time ours had one my husband went over and told them the noise was absolutely fine by us, but there was a lunatic on crack in the assisted housing flats next to them. Said

‘High street stalwart Marks & Spencer is preparing to go head-to-head with the likes of Topshop,’ said a news report the other day. Never mind ‘going head-to-head’, a metaphor presumably taken from the life of the caribou or elk, and enthusiastically seized upon by people who like to speak of going ‘belly up’ or ‘pear-shaped’,