Modern manners
How did my children become more middle class than me?
In a café in Norfolk last week, my seven-year-old son uttered words that mortified me. No, he didn’t comment loudly…
Dear Mary: How can my son tell if his cleaner is stealing from him?
Q. What is your view on emailed vs handwritten thank-yous? During my recent travels around pre-Brexit Europe I stayed in…
Can a church blessing tame my unruly dog?
The picture on the front of the Animal Blessing Service programme featured a dog, a cat, a rabbit, a goldfish,…
Dear Mary: did our friends regift us out-of-date chocolates?
Q. A university friend and I want to get an invitation to a very good shoot owned by a colleague…
Dear Mary: what should we do about a possible thief in our school dormitory?
Q. I run a very small mail-order company from home. Recently I received an exceptionally rude email from a disgruntled…
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Dear Mary: how can I hide that I’m no longer drinking?
Q. I have given up drink except on certain occasions when it would be really rude to refuse. What’s the…
Dear Mary: How do I get an answer from my elusive publisher?
Q. What is the current etiquette regarding chasing an opinion from a publisher to whom, by agreement and via a…
Problems solved for Michael Fabricant, Liz Truss, Piers Morgan, Richard Madeley, Anthony Horowitz and others
From Michael Fabricant MPQ. When I go for intimate meals at a restaurant with a friend, I am invariably asked…
Dear Mary: my Botox treatments make me look standoffish. How can I appear warm?
Q. A friend and I are giving a combined Christmas drinks party for 120 people. It’s being held at her…
Dear Mary: How can I stop chatty friends from phoning when I’m meant to be working?
Q. May I pass on a tip to anyone facing large family house parties at Christmas? I always used to…
Why I’ve changed my name
As someone who has recently discovered he is black, I have watched with incredulity the treatment doled out by the…
Dear Mary: What can I do about loud train snorers?
Q. At every drinks party one will be in mid-conversation with another guest and someone will walk over and loiter…
Dear Mary: How do I stop my wife from sabotaging my anecdotes?
Q. My wife and I have been married for 50 years. The marriage is basically sound but she has recently…
Are you a politically correct pervert?
It hasn’t always been easy being a progressive-minded man who prides himself on his sensitivity to issues of race, gender,…
Dear Mary: My friend’s cooked breakfasts make me gag
Q. My fiancé and I spend many great weekends with another couple. I am a vegetarian and quite particular about…
My long gossipy letters to an old friend get just a few words in response
Q. An old friend shares aesthetic sensibilities and tastes in people. Hence we have sustained a highly enjoyable correspondence over…
Dear Mary: what do you say to neighbours who find you in your nightdress?
Q. I recently gave a jolly dinner for eight friends (some old, some rather famous), all home cooking, ending with…
Dear Mary: I had £300 stolen while at a friend’s house. Should I tell them?
Q. Following a small dinner last night in a private house, I got home to find £300 missing from my…
The neo-Marxist takeover of our universities
According to Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, America’s universities have succumbed to ‘safetyism’, whereby students are protected from anything that…
Dear Mary: How can I weed out the party ‘flakes’?
Q. I invited four younger colleagues, all in their mid to late thirties, to go for a meal at a…
How should you deal with a competitive best friend?
Q. Good friends, who moved away from our city suburb a couple of years ago, retain a pied-à-terre the better…
Dear Mary: How do you deal with a monologuing fellow guest on board a yacht?
Q. A long-standing friend has an admirer of some means. He has invited her to borrow his fully staffed and…
Dear Mary: How does a Wimbledon ball girl deal with a disgusting player?
Q. I’ve accepted an invitation to stay in a small house party in France. My host hasn’t mentioned who else…
The #MeToo movement could be the saviour of sex
Sexual intercourse, Philip Larkin famously wrote, began in 1963. And listening to contemporary commentators, you’d think that it came to…
Dear Mary: What is the correct form when you find someone hiding from you in a cupboard?
Q. Is there a tactful way to ask people with whom you’ve been interacting on an almost daily basis over…
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