14 APRIL 2007, Page 63

YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

Dear Mary

Q. Please can you advise me? I am a bachelor living on my own and I have my shirts ironed by a very nice lady in the village. She does a great job, but I am getting increasingly annoyed as she leaves my shirts hanging in the kitchen and then proceeds to cook a roast dinner (or similar) before I can pick them up. She is incredibly friendly but very thinskinned. How can I subtly suggest that she stores them somewhere else so I don’t smell of roast lamb when I wear my clothes? I did think about providing clothes covers but fear this might not have the desired effect, as she might only cover them immediately before I pick them up. Thank you.

R.C., Chester.

A. Next time you enter this village house with your pile of shirts to be ironed, single out a new one from the pile saying it is a present from a friend and ‘apparently it has special care instructions — here they are’. Forage absentmindedly in your pocket, then hand over the instructions (which you have secretly knocked up yourself on your own computer and printed out in a plausible typeface). The instructions should warn that the ‘especially absorbent sea-island cotton will pick up kitchen or cooking smells and should be aired near an open window to lend the garment that meadow-fresh aroma which gives clothing an extra sensual dimension’. On your subsequent delivery of shirts, enthuse about how clever she had been to air the sea-island cotton shirt so well. Ask if, in future, she could possibly do the same for all the shirts.

Q. I am guardian to a Hong Kong boy who is at boarding school and comes here for exeats and half-term. His parents have started to send me presents. I have already received a dreadful painting of ‘Sunset over Hong Kong’ and now a china vase over a foot high depicting a giraffe bending over to lick her baby — there is a hole up her bottom to put flowers in. (It arrived in a grand box marked Franz so it looks expensive.) What can I do with these things? Charity shops? Worse still, the boy is only 14 so I have another four years of presents. How can I stem the tide?

P.D., Dover, Kent.

A. Write to the parents saying how much you enjoy seeing their boy but insisting they send no further presents. You are worried by a rumour that Gordon Brown’s successor is to introduce a retrospective stealth tax on luxury presents from overseas as ‘benefits in kind’. Only perishable goods such as food and drink, you can add, will escape the new chancellor’s net. You will find it easier to redistribute items from these categories if they are not to your own taste.

Q. My brother-in-law likes to drink a lot when he comes to Sunday lunch. I don’t want to drink myself at lunchtime as I then have to write the rest of the day off. The problem is that he sulks and says I am a spoilsport if I don’t join in. What can I do?

Name and address withheld A. You will find that Cobra alcohol-free beer is extremely refreshing and looks and tastes almost identical to the alcohol-rich variety. Confuse your brother-in-law by having a fridge full of alcohol-rich Cobras but quietly drink the alcohol-free version during your lunches.