Etiquette
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. The Queen had the knack of making you feel that you were the only person in the room. At…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. We have made available our mews cottage – 30 yards from our main house – to a woman with…
Don’t grass
A neighbourly feud is worse than a hosepipe ban
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My 74-year-old husband was having drinks in the garden of some young clients when he bit down on an…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My parents are abroad for two months and as my flatmates in London are all, like me, working from…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. Everyone was divine at a very jolly lunch I attended in the Cotswolds with the exception of one person,…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I have found parties frustrating this month because they have been too crowded. Is there a polite way to…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My girlfriend and I have started using a personal trainer for some joint sessions at our local gym; the…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. In order to raise money for a worthwhile cause, I have agreed to open my garden for the first…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My wife’s father, who she adored, has died and she is to be his sole beneficiary. She intends to…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I’m 28 and lucky enough to own a four-bed house in Notting Hill. I let three of the rooms…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. Financially successful friends have kindly invited my husband and me to stay for a week in France. Our problem…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. A great friend is in a terrible state regarding a cat foisted on her by a close relation. She…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My brother’s social life has dried up since his divorce (which coincided with the pandemic). So when he received…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I live in the Hampshire countryside, in a lovely apartment where I have the use of an old walled…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My husband has developed an irksome habit whenever he goes abroad without me. We have cameras outside the house…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. Rory Sutherland recently wrote about high-end takeaways (Wiki Man, 19 February). In the last London lockdown, I was fortunate…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. Recently I started hanging out with a new friend. We are both in our twenties, single, and usually go…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. Three weeks ago I banged my head on the lower branch of our near neighbours’ tree, which I couldn’t…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. As if it wasn’t bad enough to overhear one side of a conversation as it’s bellowed into a mobile…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My partner’s work involves him seeing and talking to people all day, every day. I booked us on to…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My husband and I have made friends with two distinguished, although fairly eccentric, writers whose company we thoroughly enjoy.…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I treat myself to a manicure every ten days. It’s a 30-minute appointment and the girl I use is…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. A long-standing artist friend, whose work now commands high prices, has sent me out of the blue a present…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My cleaner is industrious and trustworthy but she doesn’t have many people to talk to and evidently looks forward…
