YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary.. .
Q. lover uses liberal quantities of tal- m powder on his private (except to me) Parts. He thinks I find this sexy. On the Contrary it seriously diminishes my ardour. ham can I persuade him that I much prefer tam unpowdered without, as it were, putting him off his stride?
J.B., Westminster 4. Old-fashioned sneezing powder is still available from most good toy shops. Use it to trigger an allergy-style reaction as soon as the privates in question are exposed to the air. 'Oh dear,' you can wheeze, 'I must have developed that new Multiple Chemi- teal .Sensitivity Syndrome that everyone's 4'3118 about. Are you wearing any scented Products by any chance?' You should soon see an end to the nuisance.
Q. New Labour troubles me. There seems to have been a seismic shift in protocol on this issue since the days of our fathers. For example, my father was dining in his London club while my mother pushed me out into the world, while my father-in-law, who had taken more of an interest in pro- ceed lugs, had to be summoned from an Indian restaurant near the hospital after it was all over — the birth of his middle atighter that is. Nowadays there appears tu to be pressure on the expectant husband "3 share in this most basic of rituals. Friends of mine balk at the very idea that I am ambiguous about whether I shall attend the birth of our first child. It is to all intents and purposes considered to be very un-PC not to. I have my own views on the matter but at the same time I do not want to do the wrong thing. Please advise, Mary. Name and address withheld A. Outsmart PC busybodies by announcing that you believe it is a 'woman's right to choose' who should accompany her to the birthing chamber. You are prepared to accept the fact that your wife may not choose you, or may even change her mind at the last moment, but you will stand by in readiness to kowtow to her orders. Mean- while, suggest to your wife that a female birth expert also be on standby. She may well prefer this company to yours when the moment comes, provided you are within summoning distance and can reappear for the swaddling. In which case you need make no mention of the fact that a whole generation of Englishmen have been trau- matised by being frogmarched into birthing suites in defiance of the wisdom of cen- turies. Just say, 'Well, I wasn't there, but it was my wife's right to choose that I shouldn't be.'
Q. A rather pretentious man I know came to stay for the weekend recently. I would have thought it was quite clear that we have no help in the house since my mother cooked the supper and our house is fairly tiny. Nevertheless, on both nights that he stayed our guest put his shoes outside his bedroom door to be cleaned, thus embar- rassing my mother and irritating me. I did not say anything to him, nor did either of us clean the shoes. What should we have done or said to punish him?
S.T., Cork A. Could you not have borrowed a local puppy and set him to work on the shoes? When your guest complained, you could have cried innocently, 'Oh, poor you. You must feel a real chump for thinking that someone would come along and clean your shoes in a house like this!'
Mary Killen
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