Q. I am a lady d’un certain age. I am by repute convivial, kind, obliging and an excellent bridge player. Unfortunately I have introduced three very boring women to each other and they insist on playing very bad bridge with me. At the end of each afternoon they produce diaries to fix the next date.
Dear Mary… Q. My problem concerns the wording of an invitation. My husband will be 50 years old in January and we are giving a party for about 300 people. Without wishing to seem ungrateful, he actually is the man who has everything, and he dreads being given hundreds of new things he doesn’t want,
Q. My flatmate recently departed for a fortnight’s holiday, leaving behind several days’ worth of dirty plates. When I asked if he’d mind washing them up before going, he replied that he had no intention of doing so, because he knew I’d do them if he left them. In this he was, unfortunately, correct. I
Dear Mary… Q. I own a house in Cornwall which I rent out. This August it was taken by a couple who had a constantly changing retinue of guests each week they were there, and kept the cook and cleaner working around the clock. At the end of their four-week tenure, and having told me
Dear Mary… Q. Interrogatives like ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ are gauche and unhelpful. Likewise ‘What does your partner do?’ or, to a third party, ‘Is your friend attached?’ When, increasingly, the lack of a ring signifies nothing, even among the more mature, perhaps, Mary, you might offer a discreet means of establishing a person’s status.
Q. Some time ago I introduced a friend of mine to a very distinguished journalist. Their friendship has clearly blossomed, because in a recent article the journalist glowingly described him as ‘the Essex historian and thinker’. My friend, for all his qualities, is a Toad of Toad Hall-like figure, both physically and mentally. The only
Dear Mary… Q. Last week I arrived to stay with some English friends near St Remy and was shown to a most delightful and certainly ‘best’ spare bedroom — with glorious views over the Camargue and beyond. You can imagine my astonishment when, on climbing into my luxurious bed later that night and folding the
Dear Mary… Q. Could you help with a problem that regular users of the ‘quiet’ carriages on trains are too often confronted with? How does one get compulsive talkers to shut up and observe the companionable silence which 95 per cent of the carriage’s occupants cherish? Users of mobile phones and personal stereos can legitimately
Q. I would welcome your advice. I called a friend on her mobile telephone to ask her for some information and, although she was driving, she answered the call. A vigilant police officer noticed that she was breaking the law and pulled her over to reprimand her and issue a £30 fine. She called me
Dear Mary… Q. What is the correct attitude to strike when a friend regularly inquires whether one has read the latest issue of The Spectator, the purpose of the inquiry being to draw one’s attention to correspondence from that person in the issue in question? As the friendship is dear, I would welcome your advice
Dear Mary… Q. I am 16 and am looking forward to the delights of Daymer Bay in Cornwall, a meeting-ground renowned for its nightly teenage public-school gatherings. I am somewhat nervous as I do not smoke, and most of my friends use cigarettes as tools of entry into a circle of people. How, Mary, can
Dear Mary… Q. I wonder if I might pass on this little tip to your readers. We have recently had new neighbours move in who keep a terrier, which is locked in the house all day while the owners are out at work. The constant whining and barking of the bored and lonely dog was
Dear Mary Q. I am commuting to Italy most weekends this summer and, unlike Charles Dunstone, am an ‘Easy’ rather than a ‘Net’ jet user. What do you suggest I do when without asking the passenger in front tips his seat back into my face? I have thought of various measures such as prevention —
Dear Mary… Q. What advice can you give to a boy of 16 (my brother) who has not been out with a girl before? He fancies one at his school but although I have told him he is cool he does not have the nerve to ask her out. He is almost more worried about
Dear Mary… Q. We have a house in Spain and the parents of one of our daughter’s schoolfriends asked if they could rent it for two weeks. We said, well, we don’t rent it; what we will do is lend it to you and ask you to give a cheque to our favourite charity. We
Dear Mary… Q. I have been married for over 35 years and have four children and two grandchildren and parents still alive. My husband, of whom I am still fond, has been engaged in a long, weekday affair with a friend of mine, which is probably delightful for him, but hurtful and boring for me.
Dear Mary… Q. Living as we do far from the motherland, a particular problem arises with what are best described as ‘professional Englishmen’. These men, of often dubious past, make a living out of pretending to be ‘top-drawer’ English. They sport an old school tie and the appropriate accent and wind up being appointed to
Dear Mary Q. Can you tell me who all these people are who wear black eye-patches and look like pirates? One only has to look through the social pages of H&Q or Tatler and no party snapshot seems complete without some old boy or gal with an eye-patch. You never see these people at humbler
Dear Mary… Q. I have an etiquette question for you. I came back from Egypt with a stomach bug the other day, was overcome by nausea on my way across Westbourne Grove, and had to choose between vomiting in the gutter or in the litter bin outside Agnes B. I chose the litter bin but
Dear Mary… Q. As I am getting on a bit I find the process of uncorking bottles extremely arduous and fear doing irreparable damage to my aortic muscles. Can you give me some guidance about any of the wines that come in screwtop bottles? Is it all inevitably second-rate, or are there any good names