Dear Mary
Q. Over New Year I stayed with a man who combines being a generous and exciting host with a punctilious…
Dear Mary
Q. I gave a copy of Dan Russel the Fox by Somerville and Ross to a couple I know to be…
Dear Mary
Q. At a private screening of a documentary about the artist David Bomberg, a woman sitting near me in the…
Dear Mary
Q. I have a tattoo the length of my forearm and am worried it will alienate my new boyfriend’s parents…
Dear Mary
Q. I have a problem with what might be called location blindness. I live in Balham, but when I arrange…
Dear Mary
Q. We had our son’s fiancée and her family to stay recently. After dinner, expecting conversation, we were shocked to…
Dear Mary
Q. I travel internationally two or three times per month for work, often with one or two colleagues. While the…
Dear Mary
Once again Mary has invited some of her favourite figures in the public eye to submit personal queries for her…
Dear Mary
Q. Six years ago a rather glamorous man bought the house opposite me. Although he always responds to requests for…
Dear Mary
Q. My egregious mother-in-law turns 80 this December. She is not short of a bob but for one of my…
Dear Mary
Q. A friend generously hosts an annual Christmas party in London where we see many old friends we have been…
Dear Mary
Q. Walking at a local beauty spot the other day, I passed a handsome young man. We exchanged a few…
Manners for beginners
Sandi Toksvig, as this book’s cover declares, ‘makes Stephen Fry look like a layabout’. The broadcaster, author, comedian, actress and…
Dear Mary
Q. One of our daughter’s godmothers has given very generous presents but never with any regularity. She was unable to…
Dear Mary
Q. I am no interior decorator, but we have a couple of rather subtle paint colours in the house that…
Dear Mary
Q. One of my oldest and best friends, who has lived up north for years, begged me to let her…
Dear Mary
Q. I spent a week in a house party abroad, with an elderly and extremely polite friend of mine and…
Dear Mary
Q. Is it acceptable to deal with time-critical online business while attending church? Some matters just won’t wait — Glastonbury tickets…
Dear Mary
Q. Towards the end of last year, I began three months of treatment for a knee replacement. During one consultation…
Dear Mary
Q. I am working on becoming a member of the Chipping Norton set. Should I be pronouncing the excellent open-air…
Dear Mary
Q. Some years ago, on holiday in Egypt, we found ourselves in the company of a couple who wanted to…
Dear Mary
Q. What to do when you are an unwilling eavesdropper in a train carriage in which people you know assume…
Dear Mary
Q. In response to correspondence re. wedding gifts: there is no need for a couple to have a list at…
Dear Mary
Q. Is there a polite way of halting a wannabe novelist from reading his oeuvre aloud to an unwilling audience?…
Dear Mary
Q. My boyfriend, an artist, is driving himself and others mad by his inability to keep track of his mobile.…
