Problems

Q. I was lunching at a writers’ club in Lexington Street. It is a small but agreeable space. At one of the eight tables was seated a woman shrieking sporadically with loud, hyena-like laughter. This passive-aggressive behaviour was ruining the normally congenial atmosphere. The only member of staff present was a young pop-up waitress who did not feel mandated to act. As one of the oldest members I should have said something, but what? – P.R., London W1 A. To advise on this issue, I turned to supreme restaurateur Jeremy King. ‘Rather than the woman being passive-aggressive, I normally find this behaviour is borne out of narcissistic insecurity and attention-seeking,’ observes King, whose latest achievement is the revamped Simpson’s in the Strand.

Q. My husband worked in an office for 25 years and now works from home. As well as the interaction with colleagues, he clearly misses hearing the sound of his own voice. I sympathise, but during the day I obviously need to tell him various things, and almost as soon as I begin to speak he starts interrupting with fatuous prompts such as ‘And then what did he say?’ or ‘And did you tell him you were wondering when he was going to ring up?’ When he keeps interrupting, I lose the thread of my message. How can I keep things pleasant? – S.R., London W12 A. Next time you have some facts which need to be conveyed, open a file on your computer and type out what you would say were you not to be interrupted.

Q. I’m an artist and work from home painting people’s pets from photographs. While working I take a lot of FaceTime calls from friends, with my phone on a stand. My problem is that my husband is in the racing world, and when they glimpse him in the background they want to ask him for tips. How can I say ‘Sorry he is too busy’ without sounding rude? – Name withheld, Newmarket A. FaceTime offers ‘Portrait mode’ which blurs the background while keeping you in focus. Tap the screen, then the effects option, then ‘Enable portrait’. While this will not fully hide background objects, it makes details harder to see.

Q. I went to a party last weekend and my father asked me to go and introduce myself if I saw a certain woman there. When I saw her I knew from my father’s description (unusual facial features) she was the person and I went to say hello. Embarrassingly she said something like: ‘You are clever, how did you know it was me?’ How should I have handled this? – S.H., Ludlow, Salop A. Had she already been in a conversational cluster, you might have replied: ‘My father told me you would be easy to find because you would be the person with most people wanting to talk to you.’ Were she alone you could have asserted: ‘My father said you would be easy to find as you would be the person here with the most charisma.’ Q.

Q. Like many women of a certain age, I’m ‘on the pen’. I’ve lost about 20lb on Mounjaro, which I judge to be enough. However, the friend who urged me and many others to try it has lost more than 60lb. Not only does she have the dreaded Mounjaro face – deeply lined – but she wears short, sleeveless dresses that reveal arms and legs that are, bluntly, not those of a 20-year-old. Mary, I have always felt that tight garments are both unflattering and vulgar. I am also anxious because this well-meaning friend has become a subject of private mockery for turning herself from a voluptuous size 18 beauty to a haggard size 10. How can I tactfully suggest that she needsa bit more flesh? – C.P., London NW1 A.

Q. I have the sort of job that means I am regularly recruiting new young talent. Now when I go to parties I am besieged by friends, and friends of friends, looking for jobs for their graduate offspring. I am sympathetic but currently have no vacancies. How, without employing an equerry, can I discourage these approaches? – Name and address withheld A. Stay out of the mêlée of the party and instead stand unobtrusively near the entrance door with your back facing guests coming in. You can then call to people to whom you wish to speak as they pass you and filter favoured others as they are leaving. With any luck the jobseekers will only spy you as they leave, and will not wish to lose the Uber which is waiting for them by holding themselves up to have a chat with you. Q.

Q. I went to stay in the new house of a close, but not very close, friend. She put me in a charming room, but it was above a really noisy boiler that kept randomly firing up throughout the night. In the morning, when the husband asked me in front of the breakfast table if I had slept well, I told him about the boiler. I could tell from everyone’s faces that he and the other guests thought I had been rude to mention it. But if I had not said something, the next guest put in that room would be up all night just like me. What else could I have done, Mary? – Name and address withheld A. You could have used the following method. Asked if you slept well, you could have gushed: ‘Like a top. Such a comfortable room!

Q. I have a meeting scheduled with a possible business associate who asked me to buy a certain book on financial management and read it beforehand. He made a voice call last week to check whether I had got the book and, because I was actually near a bookshop, I lied and said yes. I headed for the bookshop but then got distracted. I have now forgotten both the name of the author and the title. We have no crossover friends. Help, Mary! – Name and address withheld A. You can mitigate your inadequacy by buying a copy of Simple But Not Easy by Richard Oldfield, the supreme book on investment. Read this thoroughly and absorb. Immediately on entering the meeting bamboozle your potential associate by splurging out your key ‘takeaways’ from it.

Q. A new neighbour (a weekender from London) asked me if I’d be prepared to pass on the contact details of my daily, which I was happy to do as I know she needs the money. That was about six months ago, and now the daily is asking if I could give her a pay rise because she’s not getting ‘the going rate’. She has never before complained about her salary. I suspect this new neighbour is overpaying. I don’t want to lose my daily, because she has been with us for years and, although she is rather hopeless, which is why we have never raised her salary, our dogs love her, but I don’t want to upgrade her pay to an unrealistic rate. What should I do? – S.H., Towcester A. Urban incomers are famous for upsetting the apple cart by overpaying rural workers.

Q. I have just got off a nine-hour overnight flight from Miami to Heathrow. I was in premium economy in the middle of the plane, an Airbus A330, sitting in the left aisle seat of a middle row of three. Beside me was another man and on his right, also in an aisle seat, was his wife. He made several trips to the loo during the night, and each time he chose to climb over and wake me up rather than disturbing his wife and using the other aisle. I just didn’t have the nerve to start something up with him about it, but now I wish I had. How could I have dealt with it? – R.H., London SW3 A. You might have switched to woke mode and told a member of the crew that this fellow passenger had rubbed against you inappropriately and you feel violated.

Q. I run a busy company with a workforce of 150, where I need to have short, to-the-point discussions with staff. In order to move along quickly, I set my mobile timer to ring on repeat every seven minutes. This means I have the perfect excuse for cutting short an overrunning conversation. But I cannot use this in a social setting, where I am aware it’s not OK to keep looking at one’s watch or have an alarm ring on a mobile. What should I do instead? — L.H., London SW1 A. It is, however, OK to look at a ring watch. They are available for as little as £11 and onlookers confuse them for blingy or bad-taste jewellery and do not realise that you are checking the time. Q. At the age of 65 I am surprised to find myself seeing someone.

Q. My grandson has just failed his driving test for the fifth time and yet I know, from his chauffeuring me everywhere, that he is an excellent driver. He is strikingly handsome and tall and I am convinced this prejudices the examiners against him. What would you recommend, Mary? — E.G., Alton, Hants A. Your grandson should aim towards growing enough hair for a mullet in time for his next driving test. This disfiguring haircut means that compassion should supplant any potential chippiness on the part of the next examiner and he will sail through with flying colours. Q. A neighbour and friend, who has been widowed before her time, is exhibiting some odd habits now she is living on her own.

Q. Last year I decided to share a flat with an old, but not very close, friend from school. It was a rushed decision because I had no one else at the time. But she’s far more anxious than I’d imagined. She seems to struggle with the concept of emotional independence. I try to keep boundaries but it’s hard when a person lives with you. As well as all this, she is messy and doesn’t have enough money to pay for the cleaners, so I’m on the hunt for a new housemate. I feel bad casting her aside as she works in the local bakery, and she’ll be hard-pressed finding a deal as good as this. What should I do? — Name withheld, London W10 A. Break the news with a beaming grin of positivity.

Q. My printer is broken, so I asked my neighbour to print off a letter for me. It was from my doctor. I wanted to show it to my husband, who hates reading things on a computer. I hadn’t realised it had two attachments on the bottom with information of a very personal matter. Our neighbour kindly came round with the print-offs, including the attachments. We used to walk our dogs together but now I am so embarrassed I can’t look him in the face. What can I do? – Name and address withheld A. Contact the neighbour to arrange a dog walk as per normal. When you meet up, burst into gales of laughter and claim that you cannot believe that he fell for your practical joke: ‘We went to so much trouble to fake that letter and attachments.

Q. I am soon to entertain a house party on a sporting estate. We took the same house last year and all went well, except the housekeeper complained to the owner that we’d let our guests ‘tramp through the house in their trainers and boots’. This was a misrepresentation but it’s true that the odd guest, dashing back to their room for a mobile, might have failed to spend five minutes unlacing and relacing boots. We don’t want to be banned from the property in future so, given human nature, how can I enforce the boots-off rule this year without causing bad vibes? – V.P., Malmesbury A. You can easily sidestep this nuisance by buying multiple packs of disposable surgical overshoes and leaving these on prominent display in the boot room area.

Q. I had the same Spanish housekeeper for 25 years and was devoted to her, and she to me. She was loyal, reliable, fastidious and an excellent cook. She died three years ago and I mourn her every day. I have often wondered how you would have dealt with the one aspect of our relationship which was unsatisfactory. Each morning she arrived at 8 a.m. and went straight into the flat’s guest lavatory, where she evacuated. The smell somehow permeated the whole flat for some time. I always wanted to suggest that she arrive at 8.10, having gone at home first, but couldn’t think of a way to say so without hurting her feelings. How would you have tackled this, Mary? – Name and address withheld A.

Q. My husband and I have recently made very good friends with some neighbours in France. They know I am having a 60th birthday party in London and have assumed they will be invited too. My problem is one of these new friends is a world-famous Hollywood actor and his wife is famous in her own right. I am worried about where I will seat them. I wouldn’t want to give the impression to a roomful of my oldest friends (none of whom is famous) that I think the ‘stars’ are more important than they are, but neither do I want to offend the stars, who I fear will expect to be next to us at the top table (and possibly even sitting side-by-side American style). What should I do? – Name and address withheld A.

Q. I’m the author of 14 books, mostly historical fiction but a few children’s books, all published by a major firm. I find that I sometimes get invited to grand dinners in Notting Hill where I am often put next to a middle-aged banker’s wife. When I tell them about what I do and how hard it is to sell books, they start giving me their advice. It’s always the same: ‘You should really go on Instagram’ and ‘Have you tried TikTok?’. I feel my blood boiling because these are people who have never earned a penny or done anything, and I have no desire to submit myself to a Silicon Valley platform. What should I do? – S.P., London W12 A. The trouble with being too grand for TikTok/BookTok etc is that you may be missing a big trick.

Q. Having previously lived in the country in a field with my nearest neighbour not even visible, I recently moved to a large village. I inherited a nice garden with lots of shrubs and perennials that make me very happy. However, my neighbour, whom I like and have for dinner, also likes my garden plants and secretly helps herself to my flowers. I have even been to her house and seen my delphiniums in a vase on her table. I’m new to the area and I want to keep the friends I’m starting to make, but I really mind her barefaced thievery. What do I do? – E.B., Oneonta, New York A. A potent theme in American horror films (e.g. Amityville) is hauntings consequent to building houses on, or otherwise defiling, First Nation burial grounds.

Q. I find that when I go to mixed-age dinner parties the young all seem to be shouting. How can one tell them to pipe down without puncturing their ‘self esteem’? – N.H., London SW7 A. Young people’s voices have indeed become louder. The habit of wearing headphones and watching Netflix with subtitles so they can double-screen has compromised their ability to hear real-life voices and in response they shout. If, apart from the shouting, you still enjoy socialising with the young, you could equip yourself with noise sensitivity loop earbuds and use these in some capacity. Q. I am an artist and have started employing a neighbour who comes to my house two mornings a week to help with the compilation of a back catalogue of my work.