This month marks the birthday, in 1880, of the great American polemicist H.L. Mencken. Mencken was born in Baltimore, and in the 1920s and 1930s was the most feared and admired writer in the United States. He spared no one his caustic honesty; politicians, church leaders, academics, quack doctors, puritans, fanatics and other species he
Dear Mary… Q. A problem I often run into at school is that of the ‘mystery offence’. For example, arriving in my form room at the start of this term, a very dear friend ‘death-stared’ me and refused to speak to me. On inquiry as to how I had offended, she replied, ‘You know.’ What
Dear Mary… Q. For years I have suffered embarrassment at the hands of my father’s gluttony – specifically his habit of ordering an entire pint of ice cream when we go out, enough to satisfy an entire family, and devouring it at the gelato shop in front of judgmental eyes obviously disgusted by the display.
The fashion folk are upon us again. The other day I was reading a list of so-called must-have fashion items in one of the newspapers. These included a Matthew Williamson evening dress, costing over £1,000 and resembling a tea towel. Other indispensables were a Chloe bag at £720, which looked as if someone had peed
Dear Mary… Q. I refer to your advice on giving eulogies (Your problems solved, l7 August). Is not ‘eulogy’ suggestive of de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and therefore of formal praise which does not truly honour the dead? That aside, may I add to your wise words, because what to say at a memorial service
Dear Mary… Q. I am recovering in hospital from a serious car accident in which – among other things – I cracked my spine. I have been overwhelmed by the messages of sympathy and concern from friends, colleagues and acquaintances alike. However, one couple, whom I had long regarded as ‘friends’, have not so much