Modern manners
Dear Mary: At a smart dinner party, is it wrong to ask for the wifi code?
Q. My husband and I are excited to have been invited to dinner by our most important neighbour. However our…
Dear Mary: our son’s future in-laws want to play social oneupmanship with us
Q. We were about to send off to the printers the invitation for our son’s wedding (we agreed to do…
The DPP's Alison Saunders was never much cop
An interesting development for our police force, then. In future they do not have to believe everything someone tells them,…
How to be a tourist in Europe
Avoid the crowds to discover Europe’s real cultural treasures
Dear Mary: How do we deal with our host’s sudden, terrifying rages?
Q. Along with five of my favourite people, I’ve been invited again to what should be an idyllic house party…
How Soho became so-so: Kettner’s Townhouse reviewed
Sometimes I fret that Soho House & Co is doing to this column what it does to London. It places…
Can you prove you’re not a racist?
After an essay in this month’s Prospect about literature and freedom of speech, it seems I was cited on Twitter…
How can I avoid power handshakes? They hurt my fragile knuckles
Q. How does one avoid power handshakes? Twenty-five years of wicket-keeping have left me with pathetically fragile knuckles, and each…
Dear Mary: My daughter’s new boyfriend isn’t on Facebook – how do I snoop?
Q. Recently I held a party at which some people were meeting each other for the first time. One social-climbing…
Dear Mary: how can we dissuade friends from visiting when one of us is ill?
Q. Obviously one is delighted to have visits from close friends and family when one’s spouse is ailing, but how…
Dear Mary: How can we get our star friend along to dinner when he’s so busy?
Q. We want to invite a rather exceptional friend to dinner. He lives nearby but he has a top job…
Dear Mary: What do you do when your secretary accuses you of not making a pass?
Q. I am at the age where parts of the body start to go wrong, and I have a minor…
Dear Mary: how do you deal with a daughter who has gone vegan to get attention?
Q. Several friends have reached an age and wealth that means they take unreasonably long holidays or even entire gap…
Mary solves your problem: Is it cultural appropriation for an English person to attend a Burns supper?
Q. Should the lady or the gentleman have the banquette in a restaurant? I’ve been brought up to believe that…
Mary solves your problems: A secret school scrapbook discovered by the housemaster
Q. At my son’s school the boys keep a clandestine leatherbound book known as ‘The Bible’, a sort of Rogues…
Dear Mary solves problems for Vince Cable, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lord Archer and Ruth Davidson
From Sir Vince Cable MP Q. I have an unfulfilled ambition to win a national title for ballroom dancing in…
Mary solves your problems: What do you say when a screaming child is ruining your lunch?
Q. My wife and I were having lunch in our local bistro. A boy of about two was wandering around…
Mary solves your problems: what’s the right response to a request for no presents?
Q. We have reached the age when we are receiving invitations from our friends for Golden Wedding celebrations. All the…
Over-protective parents are making kids miserable – and fat
We think we are protecting children but we are harming them
If you don't let children take risks, you are damaging them
A bit of risk is good for the young
Dear Mary: What’s the etiquette of visiting a friend in hospital?
Q. What is the etiquette of hospital visiting? A friend in his fifties is about to spend six weeks in…
Millennials don’t fear censorship because they plan on doing all the censoring
Matt Ridley’s fine recent Times column was hardly the first to raise the alarm about the pseudo-Soviet intolerance of the…
Mary solves your problems: A friend lent me a treasured keepsake – now they have the gall to ask for it back
Q. A newish friend who has very good manners lent me a DVD of his grandfather at the Olympics. I…
Dear Mary: the TV mogul whose floral offering did not cut the mustard
Q. A well-known television mogul,whom I had met only once, came to dinner at my house. I was on good…
Mary solves your problems: How can we avoid eating poisoned mushrooms foraged by a friend?
Q. We have moved from London into a rural area where we are preparing for the first visit of a…
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