manners
Dear Mary: How do I choose who to sponsor for the London Marathon?
Q. For the past couple of years, many of my sons’ friends have been gamely running the London Marathon for…
Dear Mary: should I encourage guests to strip their beds?
Q. Our son, 17, who is generally a credit to us, has started eating with his mouth open. It’s the…
Dear Mary: how can I unmask anonymous marathon sponsors?
Q. My son-in-law is running the Paris marathon to raise money for cystic fibrosis research and has sent out a…
Dear Mary
Q. Scrolling through my WhatsApp contacts, I have found a name I don’t recognise but when I click on the…
Dear Mary: how can I make my untidy twin look better?
Q. I have a public profile and have always looked after my personal presentation, but my identical twin has never…
Dear Mary: Should I tell my boss I swiped his champagne?
Q. I have got myself in a pickle. My boss was given a bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal by a…
Dear Mary: Should I give weekend guests paper napkins or napkin rings?
Q. I have a hatred of paper napkins – eating outside, they blow away; inside, people drop them on the…
Dear Mary: How do I curb my brother’s unsavoury language?
Q. My brother, who lives in southern France, uses unsavoury words to gain my attention, such as ‘infernal swine’, ‘schweinhund’…
Dear Mary: Why aren’t I getting more Instagram ‘likes’?
Q. As a novice user of Instagram I was flattered at how quickly I gathered followers – 200 already. Many…
Dear Mary: How do I get out of a friend’s bad birthday party?
Q. I shall be spending more time in the company of newer acquaintances in the West Country and would appreciate…
Dear Mary: How do I confront my husband without telling him I hacked his emails?
Q. The Queen had the knack of making you feel that you were the only person in the room. At…
Dear Mary: How do I get my friends to leave after a dinner party?
Q. We have made available our mews cottage – 30 yards from our main house – to a woman with…
