Etiquette
Your problems solved
Q. Is there a polite way of not letting someone hold your baby? I love giving mine to people to…
Your problems solved
Q. While renting in Rock last week, I ran into an acquaintance who invited me to join her large house…
Your problems solved
Q. I have learned that someone I much admired in youth is about to become single again. I only have…
Your problems solved
Q. Travelling on a train recently I happened to notice two former acquaintances, sitting together and very nearly opposite me,…
Dear Mary
Q. At a recent literary festival I attended a talk with a high-profile octogenarian writer. I had already bought her…
Your problems solved
Q. My partner, a leading political commentator on a national newspaper, recently agreed to shave off his hair at the…
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Q. I was at the theatre recently and bumped into a well-known Liverpudlian crooner coming out of the disabled lavatory.…
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Q. What should I say the next time I run into a woman with whom I was at art school…
Dear Mary
Q. I felt uncomfortable during a dinner for 20 in a private house. The young man on my left had…
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Q. I have a friend who can be shy and inhibited. Recently, he was invited to stay on a Caribbean…
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Q. As a writer I find working at home too distracting. I am a longstanding member of the London Library…
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Q. I socialise in Shropshire every weekend and regularly give dinners which end at 2 a.m., but it’s a different matter…
Non-existent phrases
‘Ten Norwegian phrases that don’t exist in English but should,’ said the headline. So I had a little look, as…
Dear Mary
Q. I have moved from London to the centre of a historic market town, now becoming famous as a foodie…
Dear Mary
Q. For ten years, I have made a reasonable freelance income working from home. During this time my husband has…
Your problems solved
Q. Someone I was at university with but hadn’t seen much of over the ten years since invited me to…
Dear Mary
Q. When sending wedding invitations, does one put the full titles on the card, or can one just put, for…
Your problems solved
Q. I’m a single bloke now and for various reasons don’t foresee any change to that status. I have moved…
Your problems solved
Q. A wonderful and generous woman invites me, on a regular basis, to dinner parties at her house. What is…
Dear Mary
Q. I have regularly stayed with a hospitable friend in London but now hesitate to invite myself. She is seventy-something…
Your problems solved
Q. The woman who lives above me has insomnia and walks around all night. I’m also disturbed by her rather…
Lapsing into a comma
Modern manners and the fear of the full stop
Dear Mary
Q. A neighbour is hosting a party for his daughter’s 21st birthday. Adequate provision has been made for anyone who…
Dear Mary
Q. After a recent dinner I found myself on a two-seater sofa enjoying the restful company of a woman who…
Dear Sirs and Madams
Peter Oborne 4 July 2015 9:00 am
In praise of the old-fashioned letter-writer