Q. My daughters and I were recently taking our seats on an aeroplane. From behind us came the recorded refrain ‘If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands’. Several further verses ensued. A toddler was watching something on his dad’s phone: he was too young for earphones. I turned and asked politely for the volume to be reduced or turned off. The dad replied, ‘Well, if you’d rather hear him screaming.’ I simply asked again that the volume be turned down, and it stopped shortly afterwards. No screaming ensued. But might there have been a better rejoinder to the father’s annoying response?
— A.C., London

A. Assuming a mask of sympathy you might have replied, ‘Oh poor you. How did that happen?’ Father: ‘How did what happen?’ You (still wearing sympathetic expression, which is key): ‘That your toddler got the upper hand?’ In this way you would have given him food for thought for the remainder of the flight.

Q. How do I tell my son’s Year 6 young teacher (who is a lovely girl) that she is pronouncing ‘hyperbole’ wrongly? (Like ‘Super Bowl’.) I cannot allow my son to make the same error. In previous years we have had other pronunciation errors from teachers who were trying to teach the Trojan Wars with no classical education, but this one can’t pass. It seems to be a recurring problem and I would appreciate a method of dealing with it.
— L.S., by email

A. Gush up to the lovely girl and give a compliment or two so she is reassured that you are on her side. Then ask if she knows of your own teaching discovery — the website dictionary.com? Bring it up on your iPhone to show how when you type a word into a box to find its definition, you can also press an audio symbol which will boom out the correct pronunciation. As she watches, type in ‘hyperbole’, then press the audio symbol, all the while smiling pleasantly.

Q. With minutes to spare before a party, I rushed into Selfridges to buy a dress and glimpsed in the crowd an old friend and former colleague. We haven’t met for a year or more. This woman is highly entertaining but garrulous, and there would have been no way of ducking a ten-minute anecdote, so I pretended not to have seen her. I now feel guilty. I cannot be sure whether she saw me but she probably did as she is fairly beady. The problem is that she is also insecure. Would it be worse to ring and apologise and explain the circs or to do nothing, thus possibly confounding her insecurity?
— Name and address withheld

A. Ring and say you were prompted to call because you saw her virtual double in Oxford Street and it reminded you that you have been out of touch. And what is her news? Then sit back and enjoy the anecdotes.