Mary Killen

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.

Dear Mary... Q. I regularly enjoy Sunday lunch at a premier hotel here in Bangkok. The food is exceptional and the Thai service staff friendly and professional. Staff recognise and greet me on arrival with a warm, formal 'Good morning, Mr Smith'. A couple of Sundays ago, chatting with an attractive waitress by way of a little innocent flirtation, I suggested she call me 'Michael'. Since then I am greeted with 'Hello, Michael' on arrival by all and sundry at the hotel. Clearly she thought this was my preferred form of address and advised her boss accordingly. Being Thai, they were not aware of the subtlety. Mary, how can I solve this problem without embarrassing her or appearing to the staff to be a snob?M.S., Khlongsan, Bangkok A.

Dear Mary... This week, Mary is dealing exclusively with problems relating to table manners. Q. When eating, my 15-year-old daughter knocks her teeth with her fork or spoon. She is very amenable to being corrected, but we are about to join a large house-party where we will all be eating en famille, and I can't nag her in public. I can't stand the noise, so I imagine that none of the other adults will be able to stand it either. What do you suggest, Mary? C.H., London SW18 A. Choose an anodyne expression such as 'Have you got enough salt?' and collude with your daughter that when she hears this question it is a coded message for 'stop knocking your teeth'. Q.

Dear Mary... Q. What should you answer when a lady whom you have not seen for 30 years greets you with the question, 'You do not remember who I am, do you?' when you don't?P.S., Cornwall A. You should not worry. Such a lapse in memory is not the offence it was in the days when circles of friends and acquaintances were more manageably sized. Thirty years ago it would indeed have been hurtful not to remember someone who remembered you – particularly if that person had conceived a romantic longing for you and spent hundreds if not thousands of waking hours daydreaming about the possibility of your union. To reassure this particular lady, it might have been kind to let her have the upper hand by responding in confidential tones, 'As you can probably see, I'm not the man I was.

Dear Mary... Q. Is it now de rigueur to offer one's dinner-party guests expensive chocolates along with their coffee or tisane? If the answer is yes, then I am afraid that I personally cannot afford to shell out a further tenner on top of what I will already be spending on food and wine. Plus I think it slightly disgusting and self-indulgent when a treat becomes the norm. What do you think, Mary?S.W., London W11 A. I agree with your last point. The trouble is that, although it is not de rigueur to offer expensive chocolates, many people's palates do now seem primed to receive them following dinner. Guests will even boldly ask if any are available. You can be prepared for this eventuality with a compromise.

Dear Mary... Q. A few days ago I was in a flat belonging to one of my sister's friends, whom I do not know very well. On visiting the bathroom, I discovered a lavatory, no paper, a bidet and a neat pile of clean fluffy towels. Never mind what I actually did; what would have been the proper course of action?Name withheld, London SW8 A. As a female, you were correct to be wary. This situation was less straightforward than it seemed. The first course of action open to you was to use the bidet and a clean fluffy towel, but the result would have been a 'used' towel with no obvious receptacle wherein to dispose of it. What if the person before you, equally embarrassed by the lack of a disposal option, had folded their used towel neatly back into the pile, complete with DNA samples?

Q. A colleague who sits next to me at work has a propensity to break wind violently whenever he feels inclined to do so. Far from being embarrassed by these eructations, as I imagine most people would be, he seems to see it as a social indelicacy on a par with coughing or slurping coffee; that is to say, not necessarily polite but certainly nothing to apologise for. Needless to say, I feel rather differently. How do I broach the subject without awkwardness? I have tried getting up and walking away every time the malodorous offences are committed, but he doesn't take the hint. Whether this has anything to do with the fact that he is American, and unaware of British standards of office etiquette, I couldn't say, but I am reaching the end of my tether.Name and address withheld A.