Dear Mary… Q. While at a party at which I knew only the host, I made the mistake of trying to enter a group by laughing at a joke that I had not heard. Although rather silly, this would have been fine had the man standing next to me not asked what the joke was,
Dear Mary… Q. I have a pressing question. Although I am as addicted to my mobile as anyone else, I do try to keep conversations in public to a minimum. But I have noticed that on London buses there is a very plague of incessant chatterers. These people always seem to shriek as long and
Dear Mary… Q. My husband and I are planning to celebrate our 55th (emerald) wedding anniversary with a modest family party. We have verbally accepted a quotation for a finger buffet from a local caterer, but our grandson, who with his wife runs a small catering business in Birmingham, has expressed a wish to do
Dear Mary Q. My wife and I have between us received invitations to no fewer than 17 parties being held in London on Wednesday, 12 November, all of them drinks parties between 6.30 and 9 p.m. How should we tackle this embarras de richesse? Although five of the parties are in SW1, it is my
Dear Mary… Q. Every day I find myself reading Today’s Birthdays in the Daily Telegraph. Do you know how I go about being included? Is a title helpful? (If so I will have to try harder.) The other day, there was a list of such types, toffs every one of them — to name but
Dear Mary… Q. In their light-headed enthusiasm, some of the disciples of the late Dr Atkins seem to have lost their social judgment as well as their weight. Last week, whilst dabbing at her crocodile tears on having to discard so many of her wonderful clothes, a very good friend offered me first choice. Unusually
Dear Mary… Q. For my husband and me the racing world has always been a source of Elysian happiness and this weekend we are taking our children to Newmarket races. There a problem looms. Our trainer enjoys heroic status in our household and our children have reached the age where they are beginning to participate
Dear Mary… Q. While staying in Provence recently, as the guest of some friends from Suffolk, my host, albeit an Englishman to his core, appeared every evening in a different pair of monogrammed velvet slippers (stags rampant on coronets, HS entwined with stags rampant, etc., etc.). Knowing that his wife (who, incidentally, is a very
At dinner the other night in Washington I was sitting next to Robert Redford. Actually, this is a slight fib. I was in a restaurant called Nora’s – which, incidentally, was the first organic restaurant in the capital – and he was at the next table. He is a man of stature; that is, he
Dear Mary… Q. Like an earlier correspondent this summer, my wife and I find ourselves in the invidious position of being asked, very much as an afterthought, to the wedding of friends to whom we considered ourselves close. Worse, on the grounds that they had ‘run out of’ the real thing, we have not even
It seems a bit odd, learning to drive in one’s thirties. Readers will wonder why I have put it off for so long. The answer is that, as Eliza Doolittle thought, it is jolly nice being driven around in the back of a taxi. The expense of the fares was justified by the cost of
Dear Mary… Q. Our 15-year-old daughter was invited as a guest to accompany a schoolfriend on holiday with her friend’s father and stepmother (whom we have not met) as the elder sister did not wish to go. In a telephone conversation to discuss possible dates that would not conflict with our own family holiday, my
At a dinner-party in Italy, from which country I have now returned, a question came up. This was, are women really bitchier than men, and, if so, why, when their behaviour can be so much more exemplary? For some reason this question was addressed to me. I hadn’t recalled, alas, saying a bad word about
Dear Mary… Q. I regularly enjoy Sunday lunch at a premier hotel here in Bangkok. The food is exceptional and the Thai service staff friendly and professional. Staff recognise and greet me on arrival with a warm, formal ‘Good morning, Mr Smith’. A couple of Sundays ago, chatting with an attractive waitress by way of
Dear Mary… This week, Mary is dealing exclusively with problems relating to table manners. Q. When eating, my 15-year-old daughter knocks her teeth with her fork or spoon. She is very amenable to being corrected, but we are about to join a large house-party where we will all be eating en famille, and I can’t
Ihave been singing for my supper here in Italy in a big way. For the first course, the pasta, the entrée and the gelati. The manageress of the hotel, Il Pellicano, heard from a well-wisher (one can only hope it was a well-wisher) that I can just about croak out a few Cole Porter standards,
Dear Mary… Q. What should you answer when a lady whom you have not seen for 30 years greets you with the question, ‘You do not remember who I am, do you?’ when you don’t?P.S., Cornwall A. You should not worry. Such a lapse in memory is not the offence it was in the days
Dear Mary… Q. Is it now de rigueur to offer one’s dinner-party guests expensive chocolates along with their coffee or tisane? If the answer is yes, then I am afraid that I personally cannot afford to shell out a further tenner on top of what I will already be spending on food and wine. Plus
I looked out of the window the other day and noticed that there was something funny looking about the car (a red Honda, if anyone is interested). The car is always parked overnight in the garage driveway, the entrance to which is strongly secured by a bolted green gate. Nonetheless, there was something funny looking
Dear Mary… Q. A few days ago I was in a flat belonging to one of my sister’s friends, whom I do not know very well. On visiting the bathroom, I discovered a lavatory, no paper, a bidet and a neat pile of clean fluffy towels. Never mind what I actually did; what would have