Etiquette
Dear Mary: how can I set my daughter up with a nice young man?
Q. I am soon to entertain a house party on a sporting estate. We took the same house last year…
Dear Mary: Was I wrong to strip my guest’s bed before she left?
Q. My friend has had an irritating experience in our local cinema. She speaks fluent French and teaches it in…
Dear Mary: How do I calculate how much caviar to take?
Q. While on holiday in Corfu, we met a rather nice man who invited us to his house for dinner.…
Dear Mary: Help! My neighbour keeps getting me drunk
Q. We have a neighbour who always overfills my glass. I beg her not to. Even if I commit the…
Dear Mary: How can I get through a long, exhausting wedding?
Q. When I have an arrangement to meet a certain friend for lunch she sometimes turns up with a streaming…
Dear Mary: How do we handle staying with friends with very different political views?
Q. We are going to stay with some old friends who we haven’t seen for a couple of years as…
Dear Mary: How can I get enough champagne at a party?
Q. I had the same Spanish housekeeper for 25 years and was devoted to her, and she to me. She…
Dear Mary: Where should I seat Hollywood stars at dinner?
Q. My husband and I have recently made very good friends with some neighbours in France. They know I am…
Dear Mary: How do I ditch my slow-walking friend?
Q. I recently attended an opera on a friend’s estate in Kent. It was a multi-generational, non-ticketed, invitation-only event. The…
Dear Mary: How do I stop my friends going on about their ‘neurodivergence’?
Q. Everyone I know pretends to have neurodivergence to make themselves seem more unusual and so they can talk about…
Dear Mary: how can I point out a friend’s unsightly nose hair?
Q. I’m the author of 14 books, mostly historical fiction but a few children’s books, all published by a major…
Dear Mary: How do you leave a party early?
Q. How can you leave a party early – e.g. at midnight rather than 4 a.m. – without everyone thinking…
Is it ever acceptable to ask to swim in a friend’s pool?
I’ve always loved English swimming pools. I can’t help it – I am a pool-fancier. The lumpy feel of the…
Dear Mary: How do you decipher modern RSVPs?
Q. I was caught off guard last week by a busybody mother at my son’s boarding school asking us to…
Dear Mary: What is the etiquette of responding to save-the-dates?
Q. I have a problem with a much older friend who is slightly insecure and super-sensitive to criticism and I…
Hell is having house guests
Since we moved into our house in the Cyclades a few years ago, I’ve come to accept that if you…
Dear Mary: how can I tell young people to pipe down at dinner parties?
Q. I find that when I go to mixed-age dinner parties the young all seem to be shouting. How can…
Dear Mary: Must I take my mother-in-law’s hideous cast-offs?
Q. My soon-to-be mother-in-law has started off-loading large amounts of her expensive but hideous cast-off clothes on to me. I…
Dear Mary: Is it acceptable to go to bed before my guests do?
Q. I am a self-employed travel specialist, concentrating on holidays in Asia. Friends (and even friends of friends) plague me…
Dear Mary: Should weddings be ‘no ring no bring’?
Q. An old friend who is extremely generous and loyal has the most infuriating habit. Despite being efficient in other…
Dear Mary: What is the etiquette of unfollowing someone on Instagram?
Q. When hosting a dinner party, should one circulate the biographies/Wikipedia entries of your guests beforehand so that everyone arrives…
Dear Mary: How do I stop Ozempic ruining my dinner parties?
Q. I enjoy giving dinner parties and put a lot of effort into the preparations. However, recently I have noticed…
Dear Mary: How do I stop my husband eavesdropping on my phone calls?
Q. I’m quite a good friend of a member of our royal family – going back to our shared school…
Dear Mary: How can I check if my host received my thank-you letter?
Q. Annoyingly, one of the Sunday newspapers ran an article about the ‘least used but most scenic footpaths’ in the…
Stop scoffing food on trains!
I’m on the 10.45 slow train to Ipswich. It’s not even lunchtime, yet everyone around me is already gorging on…
