Dear Mary

Q. My husband-to-be and I both work full time. We are getting married from his family HQ and his kind mother has effectively done all the planning. She’s done it all with superb taste and efficiency so I am loath to be critical about the one thing I don’t like. She has ordered laminated name badges for all the guests, to be handed to them as they arrive at the reception, and is adamant they must be worn. She says they will help the elderly guests, but these make up only a tiny percentage: most are in their twenties or thirties. Do you agree that name badges would give an unromantic corporate flavour to our wedding reception? How can we overrule her with tact? — Name withheld, London SW10 A. Your concern is misguided.

Q. We have two granddaughters working hard and happily at university. It is our pleasure to give them some cash at regular intervals for books, rooms, foreign travel and, we hope, a lively social life. But we have just learned that they have each come under the influence of a new political leader, to whose party and cause they are making serious donations of cash. While appreciating their right to do what they want with our gifts, it is far from our wish to support a man whose political views we reject. Should we take the obvious sanctions? — Name and address withheld A. I consulted a member of my panel of experts with your vexed query. My advisor is a pillar of probity and wisdom and professionally involved in money management.

Q. What can be done when more people than you can cater for accept an invitation? We are giving a two-hour 21st-birthday drinks party for our daughter. Our Chelsea cottage will hold a maximum of 70 but, adhering to the immutable law of party-giving, which is that a third of those you invite will be unable to come, I advised my daughter to send out a hundred invitations in the expectation that only 70 would accept. Calamity! For the first time ever the formula has failed and all one hundred have accepted. For various reasons we can’t change the venue and we have no garden to expand into. Is it ever acceptable to uninvite people and, if so, how? — A.P., London SW3 A. No, it is never acceptable to uninvite.

Q. Although I have met most of the fellow occupants of my building at residents’ meetings, we don’t socialise. However our newest neighbour, a Canadian, has now emailed all the other women in the building offering to open up her own flat for a bonding evening of drinks and nibbles and where we would watch a movie together. She has asked each of us to name some dates in 2016 when we would be free so she can co-ordinate an evening which suits everyone. From what I have gleaned at the residents’ meetings, I don’t fancy the sort of ‘hen night’ atmosphere which she might be envisaging.

I have been alone in the country this festive season as my adult children and most of my friends are abroad until the second week of January. I have been perfectly happy to have avoided all the fuss about food, to have got on with some work, and to have walked my dog. My grown-up daughter was worried I would have no parties or fun, but this was mitigated by the fact that I had been asked to a local private dinner for an American writer who happens to be my literary hero. However, at a carol service on Christmas Eve I saw the well-connected woman with whom he is staying, and she didn’t mention anything about seeing me for dinner on 5 January. I’m worried that she has forgotten. She is very friendly, but also flaky.

From Nicky Haslam Q. Being considered something of a guru on the subject of things common, can you advise me how to finesse the host or hostess who asks, challengingly, ‘I suppose you think my twinkling decorations/strings of cards/mulled wine/sushi/antler headband/children are terribly common?’ A wan smile won’t suffice. A. Say, ‘Yes I do. You’re so clever to be in the vanguard. Common is the new chic.’ From Nigel Slater Q. With each passing year (I am nearly 60, for heaven’s sake), I am finding it increasingly difficult to lie convincingly. This is a particular problem when unwrapping presents. The grateful words flow from my lips like warm jam from a spoon but what appears on my face is ‘Seriously, how could you?

Q. Is there a tactful way to deter certain people from buying clothing for one’s tiny children as Christmas presents? I am not ungrateful, but over the last two years the very expensive clothes have been only worn twice — on the two occasions when the gifter came to visit. It seems so wasteful but I hesitate to suggest that I do not share her taste in clothing and she should save her money. — Name and address withheld A. No, you must not do that. Instead carefully insert the children into the clothing, leaving the labels intact. Take an old-fashioned snap (i.e. not digital) and post this as part of a thank-you letter to the kind donor. You need make no further gesture. Then take the clothing back to the expensive shop for a refund. Q.

Q. I work in the London art market. Often, when I run into a fellow dealer and ask how they are in a friendly way, I get a reply along the lines of ‘It’s been totally mad. I’ve just come back from New York and I’m about to go to Hong Kong, then it’s Dubai the week after that…’ Clearly these people imagine that rushing around the world suggests that they are incredibly successful, when paradoxically all this exertion shows that unfortunately the opposite is the case. I usually say ‘Gosh you must be busy!’ but am beginning to feel that it would be kinder not to pretend to buy into their self-delusion. What would you recommend, Mary? — Name and address withheld A. The correct response is ‘Oh, poor you.

Q. The other night, as I arrived at the John James exhibition on Fulham Road, I stopped to say hello to an old friend standing outside. We had exchanged only a few words when the man next to him suddenly addressed me in sneering tones: ‘Are you having a senior moment?’ It is true I had failed to recognise him, though he was once very handsome and I had attended his wedding, but I hadn’t seen him in the 20 intervening years, during which time he had gone grey and even grown a grey beard and moustache. How would you have responded to this rudeness, Mary? Don’t you agree that he struck the wrong note with this sort of accusatory approach towards someone who was just going into a party? — T.D., London W12 A. No reprimand was appropriate.

Q. Many of our best and oldest friends have done so well they have stopped work. Meanwhile my husband still does a 50-hour week. Our friends must have forgotten what it’s like to have to get up at six because they’re always amazed when we try to leave their dinner parties at a reasonable hour. But the real problem arises when we return the hospitality and they are still at our kitchen table two hours after dinner has been cleared, laughing, joking, saying they’ve got second wind and can I get the cheese out again. Hinting doesn’t work. Last time my husband even changed into his pyjamas and said goodnight. They chuckled as though he was just being eccentric and carried on until 1.30 a.m.

Q. As an old trout, large in height and breadth, I have taken a leaf out of the documentary Advanced Style (which celebrates elderly chic) and purchased a pair of oversize specs with big solid frames, plain in style, not à la Dame Edna. My problem is that every time I greet a friend and get kissed on one or both cheeks, it is either a clash of specs or I bump them uncomfortably on the cheek with the frames. What to do? To whip the specs off before the greeting seems as if I am expecting a slightly more intimate hallo. To angle my head away seems a bit unfriendly. Or do I just carry on clashing? —Name and address withheld A.

Q. Might I suggest an alternative solution to E.B. of London’s problem (3 October) about the person sporting a ‘maddening’ blackhead at a poolside party? Surely a more tactful way of drawing the man’s attention to the blackhead would have been for E.B. to pretend she thought it was an insect that had landed. On failing to shoo it away, she could have exclaimed that it might be a tick and he should remove it and then offered to assist in this operation. The nuisance could thus have been dealt with without the poor man even discovering that he had an embarrassing zit. — J.P., Stratford upon Avon A. Thank you. The first part of your solution is good but the second part is unusable, since a tick bite can be such a real menace.

Q. What do you do when you are so cold at a party that you cannot enjoy it? At a recent 21st in Hampshire the theme was Summer of Love so I was in a beaded catsuit and my friends were in cotton minidresses with bandanas and thin velvet coats. But the theme Arctic Explorers would have been more appropriate. There were heaters in the marquee but they only made a difference if you stood in front of them and only one person at a time could do so. The food and music were brilliant but all we could think about was how cold we were. Our host was cold herself but she kept the house locked up. — B.G., London SW3 A. Nothing like this should happen if a proper party planner is employed.

Q. A friend of mine is performing a recital in Dublin and has sent round an email advertising the time and date and asking if people will come to hear him play. I’ve already seen him performing once and it was pretty dire the first time round. Now I feel pressure is being put on me to go and see him yet again. As I live in Ireland and he’s given me plenty of notice, I don’t know how I can get out of it but dread the prospect of sitting through another hour of misery. He’s a sweet man and I don’t want to hurt him. — Name and address withheld A. Group emails like this are intended more as information than three-line whips to attend.

Q. I am an impoverished artist living in a famously cheap European city, largely for reasons of economy. I love it when friends and family relieve the monotony of lonely days in my garret by coming to stay, but every time anyone does they want to go to all the museums and galleries, which represents a serious outlay of money for me. Not to mention the restaurants. Given that I’ve been to all of these places umpteen times, how can I tactfully suggest that my guests go alone? —Name and address withheld A. Why not invent the existence of an art and restaurants club which allows residents of the city a certain number of discounted visits per month? When visitors suggest a visit to a museum or restaurant, explain that you have already used up your discounts for that month.

Q. Some years ago, while appearing as a barrister before a bench of three magistrates in the youth court, I encountered a problem. As I rose to address the chairman of the bench I found myself looking at an entirely androgynous figure with short brown hair, soft features and any physical indications of sex obscured beneath a large woolly jumper. After a moment’s panic — the custom is to address the court through the chairman using ‘sir’ or ‘madam’ — I fell back on the anachronism ‘your worships’, a phrase only used by the most pompous and elderly of police officers, thereby making an utter fool of myself. What else could I have done, Mary? — M.H., Monmouth A.

Q. I regularly travel on the Ashford-St Pancras train and usually put my case on the seat next to me so that passengers can pass along the aisle, after which I put it down by my feet. Last week a woman pointed at it and said loudly, ‘Does that deserve a seat of its own?’ Irritated that my travel etiquette had been called into question, I sought out the woman and tried to explain. She was rude and dismissive, said ‘Have you made your point?’ and told me to go away. I did so, because her two young children and someone I took to be her mother were seated with her and, from their body language, had seen it all before. I fear she is a serial bossy-boots. I am a retired woman of a certain age, far from robust, and feel I was bullied.