Q. We have made friends with a very unpopular local man and would like to skewer the myths about him by inviting others to meet him. The background is that we moved to the country from London last year so our children could go to a decent (free) day school and consequently our social life has very much centred on fellow parents. But over the summer we have been seeing our neighbouring landowner, also a newcomer, who we had been told was poisonous company. We have found him adorable! My husband resents the idea that, if we invite him to a supper party, we should have to run his name past other potential guests as though asking for permission to include him. But not warning people he will be there could lead to awkwardness on the night. What do you advise?
– Name and address withheld
A. Country dinner parties often feature a WhatsApp group so invitees can coordinate lifts and share babysitting. These are set up after guests have accepted. Why not issue the invitation on a WhatsApp group in the first place? In this way all proposed guests can see the landowner has been invited and whether he has accepted. They then have the option to keep their minds closed by pretending they are busy, or to come along and see if they too find him adorable.
Q. I am a 32-year-old male. I have lost rather a lot of weight recently the old-fashioned way, controlling my diet and taking a lot more exercise. However, friends keep asking if I have taken Mounjaro or Ozempic. This is really annoying because I have done the hard yard. How can I set the record straight?
– R.H., Woodborough, Wilts
A. Why not organise a fitness event like a 5K run with dinner afterwards and invite the chief offenders. In this way you will demonstrate your own new physical competence while putting theirs to shame.
Q. I was dining in Notting Hill and a woman at the next table, who I overheard saying she’d read English at university, was lecturing three other women about Yeats and peppering her poetry Ted talk with selections of her favourite lines of his which she read off laminated sheets. Every time she mentioned his name she said Yeets, not Yates. Should I have intervened?
– Mrs D., London W11
A. Indeed. You might have come forward as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, saying: ‘Please forgive me for interrupting but I’m delighted to hear you pronouncing Yates Yeets. All these years I knew I was right about that because, of course we say John Keets, don’t we? But don’t you find a lot of Yeets fans object to your calling him Yeets when he and his own family always called themselves Yates?’
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