Mary Killen

Dear Mary... Q. What would be a fitting response to the extremely patronising remark ‘My goodness, you’ve got him well trained!’ This whenever my husband serves, clears (and has often prepared) a dinner party. Such behaviour is still obviously unacceptable to the majority of guests, even in these enlightened times, and among forty-somethings. I am normally left speechless. Please help. Name and address withheld A. Why not reply, ‘On the contrary. He’s got me well trained into just standing back and letting him do everything. Didn’t you know that housework is the new leisure activity of choice? It’s so soothing compared to real life.’ Q.

Dear Mary... Q. I was brought up always to write thank-you letters for gifts [sic]. In recent years I have found that I am usually far too busy, especially as I would have to write them on behalf of my young children (who receive far too many presents anyway) and also my husband. Is it all right to thank people using email, if that is how we normally correspond anyway? It feels wrong, and a letter is always nice, but it does at least mean that they get thanked. If it isn’t all right, can you suggest a speedy and timely way to say thank you?L.A.S., London SW6 A. It is possible to batter out two thank-you emails per minute, but your output will fall on fallow ground.

Dear Mary... Q. My wife and I have been invited to the 50th birthday party of a not particularly close friend. The party is to be held in a local sports centre, although we have been asked to wear black tie and evening dress. Enclosed with the invitation is a note requesting that we bring a cold main course, a salad or a cold pudding for 6 to 8 people with our name on the underside of the plate, so that we can take it home with us when we leave the party. We have also been told to call our hosts and advise them which dish we shall be bringing. Subsequently, we have received a note asking us to contribute to a birthday present, by dropping off some money to a neighbour who is going to present our friend with a cheque so that she can buy some much-wanted photographic equipment.

Dear Mary Q. I believe I have fallen in love with another member of the VWH hunt. Whenever I go up to him on my horse, he has been friendly but since he hacks home I have only ever seen him mounted and with his riding hat on. I therefore have no idea what he looks like with it off, indeed whether he is totally bald. Neither do I know what he looks like in proper clothes, how tall he is or, most importantly, whether he might feel the same attraction towards me. I do know that he is unmarried, so what is my best course of action, Mary?Huntress of West London A. Take advantage of the fact that men are normally hopeless at planning their social life.

Dear Mary... Q. As the author of a number of bestselling books, I am naturally thankful for this success, but one consequence is a deluge of requests to sit on committees, judge awards, champion the voiceless, network for the jobless, and so on. It sounds curmudgeonly and pompous, but the truth is that I now have barely a moment to call my own. How can I therefore refuse the sweetly written request of my ten-year-old godson to come to his school and give a talk on the subject of my latest book? Travelling to and from the school to give the hour-long talk would effectively take up a whole day. I also have four more godchildren who might get wind of the favour bestowed and submit a similar request. What should I do, Mary?Name and address withheld A.

Dear Mary Q. Mary, please help. How can I stop cold callers shattering the peace of my home life with telephone marketing? Neighbours think it funny to pretend that the ‘homeowner’ is unable to come to the telephone because he or she is drunk, but I do not wish to be rude. What do you suggest?N.F., Richmond, Yorkshire A. It is correct not to be rude to these hapless callers, the very nature of whose employment suggests that their self-esteem must already be at an all-time low. Instead take advantage of the Telephone Preference Service whose number is 0845 0700 707. Simply ring this number and a robot will talk you through the simple sequence of steps to enable you to put an end to the nuisance. After a few weeks you will receive no more calls.

Dear Mary... Q. Last year my husband and I bought a house on Exmoor which came with two cottages superfluous to our needs. We have been renting these out as holiday lets. Out of six recent lettings three of the punters, all of whom appeared happy while they were in situ, complained retrospectively and asked for money back and/or free weeks in the future. One complained of having been kept awake by an owl, another complained that she had been disappointed by the cottage because of the amount of Ikea furniture. We are sure that punters are just ‘trying it on’. How can we outwit future chancers?Name and address withheld A.

Dear Mary... Q. My wife and I have been blessed with the arrival of a delightful baby boy. We have been inundated with soft toys from doting family and friends. We would like to do a cull and send many off to charities but don't wish to offend the original donors, who may notice the absence of their expensive gift when next they visit. What do you suggest?Q.R.F., Maitland, NSW A. Cuddly toys nearly always need to be culled, since today most houses with children have an excess. Too many love objects can be a dangerous thing in the impressionable early years of life, as they will breed a Hugh Hefner-style bad attitude towards love and loyalty. Three toy love objects are quite enough for any child.

Dear Mary... From the Rt Hon. Michael Howard, QC, MPQ. A friend of mine was walking up St James’s recently behind a girl with a stunning figure. Admiring her form, he happened to notice, somewhat to his alarm, that her tightly fitting trousers were slowly beginning to split. If he speeded up his steps and tapped her on the shoulder to tell her, she might have assumed that it was an advance and delivered a resounding slap. If he slowed down his steps or crossed to the other side of the road, he was leaving her to face embarrassment in a shop or her place of work. What was his best course of action in this delicate situation? A. It would have been considerate for your friend to quicken his pace so as to overtake the girl.

Dear Mary... Q. I have always deplored the practice of having to shake hands with strangers. After a burly oaf at a smart luncheon party shook my hand with unseemly force, I was barely able to hold my knife. The pain and fear that he had crushed the bones made me acutely aware of the barbarousness of the practice of handshaking in general. (I recall that the late Duke of Windsor had his arm in a sling for three months after visiting India.) Since this unfortunate episode I have, understandably, been shy of hearty handshakers. My position is complicated by the fact that I live in South Africa where any gesture that looks remotely unfriendly is immediately interpreted as racist, and the African people make a particular point of shaking hands with the triple handshake.

Dear Mary... Q. Recently I have developed an enigmatic passion for a rather grand gentleman. Unfortunately it is not entirely reciprocated and I wondered if I could glean some advice as to how to go forward with this. I fear the main problem is that he is rather disturbed by my lack of good furniture and, while I don’t have the funds to go out and buy such, I would not be entirely against the idea. I am in my middle years and have to admit to being clearly rusty at seduction. An Edwardian sideboard, perhaps?Name withheld, London SW1 A. You miss the point. If you are the kind of person who has to ‘buy her own furniture’ in the first place, then there is little point in trying to appeal to his snobbish side.

Dear Mary... Q. Like 37,000 other people, I signed up to go to jail on the declaration day and received a little Hunting Declaration badge to wear on my lapel and a yellow car sticker against the unjust ban. What other gestures can I make to indicate support for this noble cause ?M.H., Collingbourne Ducis, Wiltshire A. Why not load the ‘Gone Away’ hunting call on to your mobile? You must have polyphonic ringtones and be Wap-enabled, but you can find out if your mobile is compatible by looking up the website www.countryside-calls.co.uk., where you can also hear an ‘audio sample’. You can purchase online for £3, with 50p going to the Countryside Alliance. Or you can telephone 09065 388986 code 58041.

Dear Mary... Q. I have a pressing question. Although I am as addicted to my mobile as anyone else, I do try to keep conversations in public to a minimum. But I have noticed that on London buses there is a very plague of incessant chatterers. These people always seem to shriek as long and loudly as possible, and invariably in a tongue which sounds, to my terribly untutored ears, like duelling magpies. What can one do? The only thing I have been able to think of is to go up and say, ‘I am a doctor and can tell from the sound of your voice that you may have early signs of sublingual metataxis. I would advise you to rest your voice immediately and see a throat specialist as soon as possible.

Dear Mary Q. My wife and I have between us received invitations to no fewer than 17 parties being held in London on Wednesday, 12 November, all of them drinks parties between 6.30 and 9 p.m. How should we tackle this embarras de richesse? Although five of the parties are in SW1, it is my experience that even if two parties are virtually in the same street, it still takes 20 minutes at the very least to leave one party, enter another, hand in one’s coat, wait for a drink, then push through the throng to the host. There also seems to be no way of knowing what time a party will be good at. For example, the other night I went to the V&A opening of the Gothic exhibition at which the only person was the minister Stephen Twigg, who was being heckled. Meanwhile my wife, arriving at 7.

Dear Mary... Q. Every day I find myself reading Today’s Birthdays in the Daily Telegraph. Do you know how I go about being included? Is a title helpful? (If so I will have to try harder.) The other day, there was a list of such types, toffs every one of them — to name but one, Sir David Montgomery. I am confident you can help me fulfil a lifetime’s social ambition, as I am sure you must appear on the list yourself.W.G., Stoke Rochford, Lincolnshire A. As with everything today, presenteeism has its part to play in being noticed. The two ladies who would decree your appearance can often be seen taking names at memorial services, and you can reinforce their awareness of your existence by regularly pressing your engraved card into one of their hands.

Dear Mary... Q. In their light-headed enthusiasm, some of the disciples of the late Dr Atkins seem to have lost their social judgment as well as their weight. Last week, whilst dabbing at her crocodile tears on having to discard so many of her wonderful clothes, a very good friend offered me first choice. Unusually for me I was stricken dumb. Mary, how should I have responded?A.C., Galway A. If you were feeling chippy you could have replied, ‘Poor you. Shouldn’t you keep them for when you put it all back on again as you inevitably will?’ But I see no call for chippiness. Unless your friend is suffering from projected body dysmorphia, there is no reason for her to think you are fatter than you actually are.

Dear Mary... Q. For my husband and me the racing world has always been a source of Elysian happiness and this weekend we are taking our children to Newmarket races. There a problem looms. Our trainer enjoys heroic status in our household and our children have reached the age where they are beginning to participate in adult conversation. Although we do not allow our own standards to slip, we are worried they may be confused by our apparent acceptance of our trainer’s barrack-room vernacular. How can we explain this to the children?S.T., Chirton, Wiltshire A.

Dear Mary... Q. While staying in Provence recently, as the guest of some friends from Suffolk, my host, albeit an Englishman to his core, appeared every evening in a different pair of monogrammed velvet slippers (stags rampant on coronets, HS entwined with stags rampant, etc., etc.). Knowing that his wife (who, incidentally, is a very close friend of mine and was away in New York at the time) does not allow him to wear his monogrammed velvet slipper collection outside Suffolk environs, and certainly not out of the shooting season, I found myself somewhat forced to comment on this fact. I subsequently told his wife, who was quite apoplectic with rage at her husband's excess of bad taste. How can I ease my way around this marital tiff and ensure my place on their guest list next summer?J.

Dear Mary... Q. Like an earlier correspondent this summer, my wife and I find ourselves in the invidious position of being asked, very much as an afterthought, to the wedding of friends to whom we considered ourselves close. Worse, on the grounds that they had 'run out of' the real thing, we have not even been sent a proper invitation, but a photocopy. How can we best express our dismay at having this B-list status so blatantly thrust upon us? H.R.-T., East Lothian A. Punish the couple by the following means. Arrange for a third party, posing as a Sloaney factotum service, to ring them to arrange a time for courier delivery of a Minton dinner service or similar luxury wedding present.

Dear Mary... Q. Our 15-year-old daughter was invited as a guest to accompany a schoolfriend on holiday with her friend's father and stepmother (whom we have not met) as the elder sister did not wish to go. In a telephone conversation to discuss possible dates that would not conflict with our own family holiday, my wife offered to contribute towards the cost of the holiday, suggesting that we pay the airfare, as we have for our son when he has been invited to stay with friends abroad. Out of the blue we received a letter two months later informing us that they were booked into a five-star hotel for two weeks in Italy and that the exact cost of our daughter's holiday was in excess of £2,000.