Mary Killen

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, to say nothing of having to write hundreds of thank-you letters for them. Yet we both think there is something a bit killjoy about having ‘No Presents’ on an invitation. What is the most tactful wording, Mary? Or should I let people bring the presents and just divide them between our staff later?Name withheld, Stockbridge, Hampshire A.

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 am infuriated by this calculated act of selfishness, but do not wish to aggravate the situation. How can I prick his conscience and force an apology for this unacceptable behaviour?T.M., London W5 A. Go away for a holiday or a weekend yourself, and generate a pile of dishes for your flatmate to clear up in your absence. Smile pleasantly as you leave, pointing out that you are only abiding by the ‘house rules’ he established himself.

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 they had had a fantastic time, they moved out. Trouble is, they did not leave even a penny in tips for either the cook or the cleaner. Of course tips on top of wages are not obligatory, but they are the norm and the cleaner is a local woman whom I have only just been lucky enough to find and did not wish to disgruntle at this early stage. The cook, who is a friend of mine, told me that she and the cleaner both feel demoralised by the experience. There was not even a note of thanks for them.

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. I.S.W., Inverclyde A. You can trick people into revealing their romantic status by asking if they play tennis or bridge. If they reply in the affirmative, say ‘Oh great — do you have a partner who plays too?’ If they say no, say, ‘Oh, what a shame. You don’t have a partner, as they say, who likes playing?

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 recognisable part of the description is the word ‘Essex’; his only claim to being an historian is his ability to recite endless tedious lists of events and dates (focusing on those which show the French in a bad light), while his ‘thinking’ is confined to planning his next (gargantuan) lunch/dinner/cocktail or arranging his shooting calendar.

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 essential but always romantic mosquito net around the bed, a pair of extra-large men’s boxer shorts dropped on top of me. (I, incidentally, am a single woman and was travelling alone.) The pants had clearly been left behind by the guest immediately before me and had got muddled up in the mosquito net. My dilemma is twofold. I know the owner of the underpants to be a flamboyant picture dealer who has offices near mine in Jermyn Street.

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 be asked to absent themselves, but it is a moot point whether talking (even continual chatter at top volume) can be treated as a similar offence. On every journey recently we have been afflicted by people who talk for the duration without drawing breath, in voices that carry to the other end of the carriage. How can we persuade them to desist without resorting to violence?A First Great Western commuter A.

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 later to complain that I was the cause of her humiliation and implied that I should offer to pay her fine. I asked her why she had answered the call while she was driving, but this did not seem to cut any ice with her. How do I make peace? Name and address withheld A. There are two explanations for your friend’s illogical behaviour. The first, she has a low intelligence quotient. The second, she is nursing a secret grudge against you over another matter.

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 on a suitable, gentle put-down.J.V.B., St Peter Port, Guernsey A. This all sounds very Pooterish and I am tempted to tick you off for mean-spiritedness. However, you may have supplied me with insufficient detail, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Why not reply with enthusiasm, ‘Yes, and I saw your letter and I started reading it and then something distracted me. Thanks for reminding me about that. I will make a point of finishing reading it.

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 I avoid the terrible prospect of being left standing alone, and thus immediately being classified as a loser? M.M.H., Wooton Rivers, Wiltshire A. I am reliably informed that the correct etiquette for those wishing to enter a conversational cluster on Daymer Bay is to simply walk into it saying, ‘Blahblahblah.

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 driving us to distraction, and the new neighbours seemed disinclined to do anything about it. The solution turned out to be simple — laxative chocolate, removed from its wrapper, and pushed through the letterbox. After coming home to a house full of dog excrement for only two days in a row (minimalist decor with white carpets), they made other arrangements.

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 — walking to my seat with a stick pretending to have a bad leg — or revenge — allowing runny honey to drip down the back of the seat. Or should I accept the growing ‘pikeyness’ of air travel? Cabin staff seem to be there to extract cash from passengers and enforce the increasingly draconian rules and my remonstrations are usually met with blank astonishment.M E-J., Paris 7eme A.

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 her saying yes than no. He says he wouldn’t know where to take her or what to say. D.C., London W6 A. Rather than asking her out, your brother should ask her to help him dye his hair. Girls cannot resist the chance to conduct a cosmetic experiment, and since the procedure is soothing for both parties a relaxed intimacy will ensue. More to the point, the inevitable choice of venue — his house or hers — is both budget- and parent-friendly. Q.

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 said that people normally give two grand to the charity for each week that they take the house. This figure was agreed. The day of their departure was dawning and there was no sign of a cheque, so I rang and said that our driver would bring them the keys and could they give him a cheque for £4,000? They handed him an envelope which was found to contain a cheque for only £2,500. Mary, we feel they are pulling a fast one. What should we do? B. and A.G., Sibbertoft, Leicestershire A.

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. I am quite used to allowing him a long rein. I live in the country and he is in London during the week, and the thought of a full-scale confrontation and the inevitable ensuing drama seems pointless and damaging for all who would become involved. However, I am finding it increasingly galling to let them, particularly her, get away scot-free. How can I punish them suitably? She is a divorcee and a headmistress of a smart London prep school. Mary, please help me.Name and address withheld A.

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 company boards and invited to the best parties. The recent cost-of-living increases in central London have meant that their arrivals on our shores have reached plague proportions. I myself was recently fooled into inviting one of the ersatz gentlemen to my own dinner table with disastrous results which need not concern your readers. Mary, please help.

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 gatherings, so are people of Social Class One especially prone to eye deformities? Are these due to polo or shooting injuries? I’m a doctor and I know you’re from a medical family, Mary, so can you enlighten me? C.T., Southsea, Hampshire A. Although their eye-patches may make them more visible, so to speak, than other ranks with eye injuries, grandees are not especially prone to them.

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 have been told that that was wrong/inconsiderate. Can you rule, Mary? M.W., London W11 A. As the vomiter will be equally humiliated by either course, the point here is to minimise offence to the supporting cast in this mini-drama, so I am sorry to say this means the gutter would have been the better option. It is actually very difficult and unpleasant to try to get sick out of the Kensington and Chelsea bins, as the usual failure to do so attests. It is, by contrast,a lot easier to sluice it down a gutter.

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 you can recommend? J.O., London SW4 A. Times have changed — at least as far as New Zealand wines are concerned. The majority of the Wine Society’s New Zealand wines come with screwtops, and the Sauvignons that come from Marlborough are thought to be absolutely acceptable. What is more, says Charlie Wrey of The Vintry (www.vintry.co.uk), screwtops are ideal for pensioners who may not wish to finish a bottle at one sitting.

Dear Mary Q. In recent weeks I have been the recipient of an unusually large postbag of personal letters. In order to open these with speed and efficiency, and without inflicting repetitive strain injury on thumb and forefinger, I have been forced to employ a paper-knife. The sad upshot of this has been that many of these very welcome letters have had a third slashed off them as the knife did its work in opening the envelopes. Mary, would you please remind readers to fold letters in two, not three, and with the crease at the bottom of the envelope in situations where the recipient is likely to be inundated? Name and address withheld A. Thank you for this useful tip. Q. I am very short of money but do not have much time available in which to work.