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Dear Mary

Dear Mary: How can I stop friends asking to stay in my holiday cottage?

24 July 2021

9:00 AM

24 July 2021

9:00 AM

Q. My beloved wife has been studying Chinese metaphysics for 18 months. Our house and garden have been badly neglected as a result — as have her husband, and nine-year-old daughter! She claims she needs the mental stimulation, but how can we detach her from her obsession?

—F.O., Dorset

A. You could outwit your wife by developing your own obsession: namely how she can monetise her new interest by giving lessons to acquaintances and neighbours with intellectual pretensions and time on their hands.

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