YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary. . .
Q. I work in the entertainment business and I am often 'invited' to performances of fringe plays in which my colleagues are appearing, It goes without saying that the invitation never includes the offer of a free ticket. Having shelled out upwards of £8, there is a further obligation to buy one's colleague congratulatory drinks after the show and listen to his or her interminable criticisms of the other cast members' perfor- mances. It is difficult to plead prior engage- ments on every single night of the play's run, however brief that may be, so I wonder if you can suggest a way of minimising the cost and boredom without risking a retaliatory boycott of my own performances.
A.D., London, Ni A. On receipt of such invitations, ring up immediately in a great lather of enthusiasm and shriek your intention of attending the last night of the run. 'It'll be such fun on the last night and I know you'll be absolute- ly magnificent because you're so talented and so great-looking!' etc. Flattery and encouragement 'laid down' in this manner will serve you in good stead when you fail to make the final performance due to a 24- hour virus. Your colleagues will feel sympa- thetic rather than sulky since an ego-bol- stering given in advance of a performance rather than following it is often more valu- able to those for whom reassurance is the very breath of life.
Q. I have lived in London for the last 30 years and have a large and varied social circle recruited in the main through my work as a critic and novelist. A lot of my friends are successful, some are very rich, but I have recently realised that too many of them are what might be called rackety, that very few if any of them are respectable. I am wondering whether I have got to live with this situation or whether there is anything I can do at this rather late hour to try to put some propor- tion into my social circle.
Name and address withheld A. Have you thought of becoming a non- stipendiary magistrate? Such a position should bring you into intimate contact with just the sort of pillars of society you need to add gravitas to your social mix.
Q. You invite readers to send examples of pre-vulgarity pronunciations. There is a delicious list of these in Rose Macaulay's novel The Towers of Trebizond (1956). In my Collins edition (1965) this occurs on page 39.
The driver, who knew a little English, pointed to the hills and said, 'Wolf up there.' `Wolves', Father Chantry-Pigg, who knew about hunting, corrected him, 'when they hunt men. Wolf when men hunt them.' Being both old-fashioned and very class3 Father Chantry-Pigg called these animals wooves and woof, for he was apt to omit the L before consonants, and would no more have uttered it in wolf than he would in half, calf, golf, salve, alms, Ralph, Malvern, talk, walk, stalk, fault, elm, calm, resolve, absolve, soldier, or pulverise.
Happy collecting.
R.G. Wakefield, West Yorks A. Thank you for transcribing this thought- provoking extract.
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