Modern manners
Flashman lives!
Why it’s time for a Cad of the Year Award
Dear Mary
Q. My dear English husband has never mastered the knack of timing his interventions in conversation. He hesitates politely, and…
Port and daughters
Port, or Hermitage? This does not refer to personal consumption. I was trying to remember Meredith’s Egoist, in which one…
End of the rude
Wong Kei is a mad Chinese restaurant on Wardour Street, Chinatown. Until recently it was considered the rudest restaurant in…
The triumph of the bores
Being boring was once the worst of all social sins. Now it’s practically compulsory
A land of extremes
A few years ago I would have quite liked to live in America. I’m not sure now. For one thing,…
Dear Mary
Q. On arrival at a top level dinner, I was surprised to see at the table a woman who, I…
Dear Mary
Q. Our son, aged l6, has a medical condition which, although not life-threatening, requires surgery by a specialist to pre-empt…
Your problems solved
Q. It’s only April and yet I am being emailed by parents who have already taken charge and are drumming…
Letters
Why we need a free press Sir: As bereaved parents and (to borrow from some signatories of last week’s advertisement)…
The diamond-ring theory of housing bubbles
Google ‘the bread market’ and you get 135,000 hits, mostly from specialist food industry websites. Google ‘the property market’, however,…
Flip
What kind of scientists do school inspectors not need to be? ‘Inspectors don’t need to be rocket scientists.’ For what…
Why it’s right to criticise the newly dead
I could start by remarking that we should not speak ill of the dead, quoting the pertinent Latin phrase: de…
Must every quality TV show begin with a young woman’s corpse?
It was Shetland that tipped me over the edge. Not the place, but the TV series. Although that’s set in…
The joy of less sex
I used to think nothing would ever be more important. I was wrong
How was it for you?
Everyone’s a critic, but that doesn’t mean we want to fill in a survey every time we buy a meal
The wrong kind of granny
When I told a friend that my nine-year-old son was staying with his grandparents for the whole week of the…
Children with a severe case of the excuses
There is a beautiful symmetry to all things, I think, and probably related somehow to the concept of karma. Only…
Dear Mary
Q. Is there a tactful way to keep one social offer on hold while waiting to see if you have…
Would you let parents destroy ‘gay’ embryos?
Because I’d like to have a child, and I’m getting on a bit, my husband and I have spent time…
Dear Mary
Q. One of my best friends, who knows I don’t have a great social life at university, has a brother…
Time for posh Scotland to break its silence
I took part in a documentary about Scottishness a few weeks ago, and it wasn’t bad at all. I mused,…
The church of self-worship
Sunday morning among the atheists
Dear Mary
Q. Recently a cousin and I gave a small drinks party in the USA. She had invited a very elegant…
Multi-story dining
The Fable is three floors high and two days old, a monster newly hatched on the Holborn Viaduct; deep below…
