The Italians are an easy-going lot as a rule. Except when it comes to domestic matters. I do not refer to politics, of course, but to matters pertaining to the household. When my parents owned a house outside Pisa, they employed a cook called Amelia and a maid whose name is now a long-distant memory
Q. Having just sold a flat, I have some spare cash which I wish to put to good use for my family. My grandson George recently had a nasty operation on his knee, and my daughter was, at the time, not quite sure how much the medical insurance would pick up. I sent her a
It was extremely difficult to get a flight to Budapest last weekend. I had promised my friends the Karolyis, who have been a feature of this column, that I would attend an opera they were giving in the grounds of their house at a place called Föt. Yet Hungary seems to have become the most
Dear Mary… Q. On doctor’s orders, I’ve recently had to lay off some of my favourite foods – bread, shepherd’s pie, spaghetti carbonara, etc. Would it be polite to refuse a dinner invitation, when I know that the food served won’t agree with me, especially as it’s to a celebratory party for an old friend
Should this column be more frugal or less frugal? As an unelected column should it be allowed to ask someone else to squeeze its toothpaste tube? Should it be required to give an account of its expenditure, its private minicabs and the cost of refurbishing itself? If I have to read another word about Prince
Dear Mary… Q. I have been giving a summer drinks party in my London garden each year for the past 20 years. It has become something of a fixture on the social calendar and I am loth to give it up, but now a ruthlessly frank friend has suggested that this year I move the
I went to church last Sunday. This will surprise some of my friends. I am not noted as a regular attender of Church of England services. This is not because I don’t believe in God. But our relationship has always been a private one. One in which He or I can make our excuses and
Dear Mary… Q. I understand that, even though my husband and I are reasonably well paid (our joint income is £65,000), we may still be entitled to something called child tax credit for our new baby – this on top of child benefit. How do I find out if this is true with the minimum
Please excuse my returning to the subject of teeth, but I’ve had molars on my mind. Since my trip to America where my British teeth were looked upon with horror, I have been examining them day and night. It would be fair to say that this has become an obsession. In restaurants with friends and
Dear Mary Q. My new wife, I have discovered, has a disturbingly communal disposition. From a large, somewhat boisterous family, boarding-school bred and a once committed Girl Guide, she thinks nothing of barging into the bathroom during my ablutions. Worse still, she seems intent on conversation with me, particularly when I’m on the loo. Without
Dear Mary… Q. An adored friend, with whom I regularly have lunch, always insists on ‘supporting’ his club. These lunches are deeply enjoyable but, as the member, my friend is the only one allowed to settle the bill. I have tried pressing cash on him when off the premises but, although he knows I have
There seems to be some question as to whether Saddam Hussein’s two daughters, Raghad and Rana, and their nine children aged between seven and 16 will be allowed to apply for asylum in Britain. Their sponsor is a cousin of the family, a Mr Izzi (Izzard)-Din Mohammed Hassan al-Majid. This gentleman, who is a businessman,
Dear Mary… Q. Earlier this year we went to stay with friends in Devon for the weekend. Our host went to tremendous trouble trying to find enough horses to enable our whole family (of six) to hunt. We had brought with us a present of a small box of chocolates and when, on the Saturday
There I was standing in a room with the word ‘Service’ painted on the door, in the Gellert hotel in Budapest. I was attempting to iron a pair of trousers for the first night of Phantom of the Opera, which was to be the biggest stage production Hungary had ever attempted. Only the Gellert had
Dear Mary… Q. A friend of mine has a maddening habit. She rings me from her mobile saying urgently, ‘Can you ring me straight back?’ then hangs up. Clearly she believes that it is much cheaper for me to ring her mobile from my landline than vice versa. This may or may not be the
I was interested to read in one of the newspapers that my old friend Robert Hardman had had his teeth surgically whitened for an article. Frankly, in all the years I have known him, I have never paid any attention to Robert’s teeth. This is no slight. It is merely that, when I saw the
Dear Mary… Q. I am shortly to take the stage at a certain literary festival. I always enjoy talking afterwards to those readers who have brought along their copies of my book for me to sign. One thing which grates, however, is the inevitable presence, always at the very top of the queue, of a
Dear Mary… Q. I cannot believe that you condone the habit of ‘high-profile guests’ who keep their hosts waiting while they decide whether or not to accept an invitation (26 April). Their so-called ‘ruthless insistence on flexibility where social arrangements are concerned’ shows a weakness of self-importance. The hosts would no doubt have other guests
Like most people, I first heard or rather read of the Gothic novel in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. The heroine and her friend are gabbing away about The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole – at least I think it was The Castle of Otranto. Years ago, the BBC produced a serial based on Northanger
Dear Mary… Q. My wife and I are actors, and therefore we are at home most of the day. We have a Brazilian cleaning man who comes for three hours at a time three days a week. Our problem is that for a full half-hour of each of these sessions he occupies the downstairs loo.