Mary Killen

Q. My egregious mother-in-law turns 80 this December. She is not short of a bob but for one of my birthdays (the big one) she sent me a card with the equivalent of A$20 (£12). This is normally what your children receive from their grandparents, not what a mature adult expects. I normally do not send her anything for her birthday but what would be the best way to make a point for her 80th? Send her a card with the same amount of money? Or could you propose an alternative strategy to show her that her gesture was, to say the least, the action of a stingy and parsimonious women? — Name withheld, Canberra, Australia A. If you really wish to make your mother-in-law feel small, then turn the other cheek and send her cash to the value of ten or 20 times what she sent you.

Q. A friend generously hosts an annual Christmas party in London where we see many old friends we have been missing since we moved to Dorset five years ago. However, for the past two years she has ‘taken over’ and will not allow any people who already know each other to chat. She barges into groups bellowing ‘This won’t do. Come and meet new people!’ It is irritating, to say the least, to be frogmarched off to various ends of the room to join equally bemused and irritated strangers. She does not let up for the duration of the evening, constantly breaking up groups, and berating those who won’t play ball. I am certain all the guests feel the same way as we do, and we are even considering refusing the invitation this year.

Q. Walking at a local beauty spot the other day, I passed a handsome young man. We exchanged a few words and both laughed. Afterwards I wished there had been a way of getting in touch again. How can I ensure that such opportunities for romance do not go wasted in future? — Y.P., Malvern, Worcs A. Never leave home without carrying a dog lead in your coat pocket. If Cupid’s arrow should strike while you are out walking, you may, by this simple expedient, give your telephone number to any handsome young men you like the look of. Just take out the lead and inform the Adonis that you have lost your dog, but must now get home immediately: could you give him your telephone number, so he may contact you if he sees it?

Q. One of our daughter’s godmothers has given very generous presents but never with any regularity. She was unable to attend the recent 18th birthday party but said on the telephone she hoped our daughter would like the present she was sending. No present has arrived. What is the protocol re thanking for something which has not turned up but may have been lost in the proverbial post? Or indeed, the absent-minded godmother may have forgotten to buy or post? — Name and address withheld A. Ring the godmother up shrieking with excitement. ‘The most marvellous bracelet has arrived in the post but with no card attached. Is it from you?

Q. I am no interior decorator, but we have a couple of rather subtle paint colours in the house that I picked out of a Dulux colour sheet and they have both been a success. I would be grateful if you could suggest a slight put-down to those visitors who ask which Farrow and Ball paint I have used. — Name and address withheld A. A put-down would be inappropriate in the current climate. You clearly do not realise that, all over Notting Hill, billionaire women are triumphantly shrieking ‘Zara!’ and ‘Top Shop!’ when asked where their winter coats are from. Inconspicuous consumption is the new black and boasting about cost-cutting the new oneupmanship.  Q. A small matter, but one I would like your advice on.

Q. One of my oldest and best friends, who has lived up north for years, begged me to let her daughter move in with us as a paying guest for her second year of university in London. The daughter was literally homeless and staying in a Premier Inn. She promised the girl would be good and would not bring friends back. This has turned out to be true. Unfortunately, we had no idea that her classes would only occupy her for two days a week and that the rest of the time she would be present in our flat. How can we ask her not to be at home so much without making her feel uncomfortable or unwanted? — Name and address withheld A. Buy in polystyrene cups and leave columns of them next to a kettle in your drawing room.

Q. I spent a week in a house party abroad, with an elderly and extremely polite friend of mine and his wife among my fellow guests. Our hostess really pulled out the stops for us — I have never been so well looked after in my life. While I was exchanging emails with her after the holiday, it emerged that she had not received a thank-you letter from our mutual friend, which was very odd as he is punctilious and always writes very good B&Bs at once. Three weeks later I was at a party with the couple in question and I revealed that our hostess was hurt that she had not received any communication from him about our holiday. He was appalled and said that he had written to her at once.

Q. Towards the end of last year, I began three months of treatment for a knee replacement. During one consultation the surgeon and I chatted about a mutual interest, the pleasure of cigar smoking. In fact I ceased smoking some time ago, but still had a quantity in my humidor and was pleased to make a gift to someone still enjoying a smoke. Among the items were a number of Monte Cristo Habanas, and to avoid any damage I packed them in a leather cigar case: I also handed over an inscribed book on the cigar industry, saying that I would like to have both the book and the case returned to me. I am not at all interested in the promised report of pleasure received. I have simply asked many times for my things to be returned , without success. Mary, how can I achieve this? — J.E.

Q. I am working on becoming a member of the Chipping Norton set. Should I be pronouncing the excellent open-air swimming pool as lee-doh or lie-doh? — P.W., by email A. You might as well pronounce it correctly — lee-doh — but which Chipping Norton set are you aiming to join? The set made up of Cameron, Brooks and Clarkson (who fund-raises for the Lido) exists mainly in the mind of journalists. Then there is the real Chipping Norton set whose members are mainly earthy, arty and left-wing. They pronounce it lee-doh as well. The Lido is charming but you will need to do more than pronounce its name correctly to gain social access to these busy people. Q.

Q. Some years ago, on holiday in Egypt, we found ourselves in the company of a couple who wanted to see us when we got home. Out of politeness we agreed and we have now fallen into a rut of reciprocal dinners. It has become a bore — perhaps for them as well. How can we stop it without seeming rude? — B.K., address withheld A. Next time provide entertainment as well as dinner.  A talk, concert or play would give new shared references to discuss, just like in the days when you had Egypt in common. It would also halt a slide into cultural complacency. In London, for example, a 5 x 15 event would fit most bills. Five writers each speak for 15 minutes to a wine-drinking audience who can then eat dinner downstairs.

Q. What to do when you are an unwilling eavesdropper in a train carriage in which people you know assume they are alone and start talking very indiscreetly about someone else you know and you have left it too late to alert them to your presence? — Name and address withheld A. Ideally you will have access to earphones and some sort of electronic device and can walk through the carriage dopily, as though looking for a newspaper. Wrench out the headphones theatrically on seeing the talkers. In the absence of headphones, duck your head down, walk backwards to the nearest connecting doors and, when they wheeze open, walk through them with the momentum of someone who has just re-entered the carriage. Q.

Q. In response to correspondence re. wedding gifts: there is no need for a couple to have a list at John Lewis, and then translate gifts bought into vouchers — they should simply ask for John Lewis vouchers in the first place. This will save them the inconvenience of flogging around the store and, in their exhaustion, wildly listing things they will never use. Alternatively, stipulate an expensive item such as a Turkish carpet and suggest a donation to go towards that. The Turkish carpet option was requested at two weddings I have recently attended, and it did not strike a wrong note as we all knew where our money was going and that the couple would have a valuable item they could cherish for the rest of their lives. — J.P., Pimlico A.

Q.  I have organised a city break to Florence with a particularly easygoing bunch of friends. We have one spare room in the flat that we have hired and a friend of a friend has come forward to suggest himself. Everyone else going is very unqueeny and unfussy but I suspect this man may be a bit of a bore of the sort who complains that wine is corked or that queues are too long. How can I find out before it is too late and he is already on board and spoiling the fun for the rest of us with his quibbling ways? On the other hand, he is very intelligent and interesting and I may have got him quite wrong. –A.B., London W8 A. Invite the man to your house and offer him a gin and tonic.

Q. My boyfriend, an artist, is driving himself and others mad by his inability to keep track of his mobile. This he keeps putting down randomly on any old surface of his disorganised cottage, even though he knows there is signal only in certain places, so he can’t depend on locating it by hearing it when someone rings. Since he has also had the landline disconnected, it is often impossible to get through to him, but he seems unable to learn from his mistakes. T.D., Burford, Oxfordshire A. Next time you have access to this irritating man, programme the alarm feature of his mobile to go off, say, at 4 p.m. each day, in ascending loudness mode. An alarm will go off whether or not the mobile is within signal.

Q. To ask for money in lieu of a wedding present (Dear Mary, 3 August) is ghastly, but an established couple can overcome the issue by having a list at John Lewis and converting presents to vouchers. Thus a toaster can be readily converted to something else, even some groceries from Waitrose. For those offended to be asked for cash, a suitable sum can be used to buy a voucher, from John Lewis or a St James’s wine merchant or an art gallery. If you’re really offended by being asked for straight cash, however, a ticket or scratchcard for the National Lottery would make the point well, with a high chance of benefiting a ‘good cause’ and a low one of fixing the avaricious couple’s financial woes. — C.R., Greenwich A.

Q. My mainly male colleagues and I were happy to learn that an attractive young woman would be joining the staff of the boarding prep school where we work. Yet, unfathomably, and despite having gone to the Dragon and grown up in north Oxford, this new colleague’s table manners turned out to be truly revolting. She eats very quickly, with both elbows on the table, head down and lifting the food in via her knife, hardly using her fork at all. This has turned us all off — most notably me at whom she has made a series of unsubtle passes — and as a result we have cancelled the tradition of Sunday staff suppers as no one can stomach sitting at a table with her.

Q. I very recently attended my son’s black-tie leavers’ ball at his school on one of the hottest evenings of the year. I thought it would be good opportunity to wear my white jacket and was very surprised to find that nearly everyone else was in the usual black DJ. I spoke to the one other man who was wearing a white jacket, observing that if you couldn’t wear it in mid-summer, when could you? He suggested that there was a formality about not wearing a white tux north of a certain latitude, but was not precise on this point. This sounded pompous nonsense to me, but do you have any views or rulings on this, Mary? — J.M.S., Shipston-on-Stour A. This debate is a little bit 20th-century.