YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Q. I happen to lead a very quiet life in the countryside and after a hard day's work I usually retire to bed at about 9 o'clock. Unfortunately, I have a number of friends who are lucky enough not to have to work, and one in particular from Yorkshire often delights in telephoning me in an inebriated state in the early hours of the morning. These calls come from all over the world — Wherever he is fortunate enough to visit on his inherited money — and he rants and raves about some totally unimportant and irrelevant news item. I have tried being polite and have asked on several occasions for him to resist the temptation. However, he persists, much to the amusement of his cronies in the background. It has gone beyond a joke and, short of going to the police or switching off the telephone, I am simply at my wits' end. Can you help me?
Tired, Lincolnshire A. Why not purchase a policeman's whistle and blow on it? This old-fashioned punish- ment, normally used to deter obscene tele- phone callers, employs some sort of noise- funnelling phenomenon so that the sound emitted is horribly piercing. An eardrum-
Dear Mary. . .
bursting blast down the telephone will be enough to discourage your provocative friend from attempting to goad you tele- phonically for the foreseeable future.
Q. I have been escorting my four-year-old (and extremely precocious) grand-daughter round some of the suitable sights of Lon- don. At one exhibition, with no sign of any official attendant, I needed to relieve myself. I could not entrust her, these days, to an unknown lady of the public whilst I visited the gents: I could hardly take her into the gents, any more than I could enter the ladies. What should I do the next time this situation occurs, which it is almost bound to?
Name and address withheld Q. Sometimes when I am in charge of my two young daughters, aged six and four, at a public function, I have been in a quandary as to what to do when they ask to visit the lavatory. On the two occasions in the past when it happened — once at an agricultural show and once in the cinema — I was fortunate enough to run into female friends who escorted them in, but what should I do in the future? Obviously, I do not wish to take them into the gents for fear they might witness `cottaging'.
TL., Lockinge A. These are only two examples of a num- ber of enquiries I have received on this sub- ject, and, with a team of thinkers, I have pondered the dilemma without reaching a fully satisfactory solution. I would therefore invite readers to submit their suggestions. In the meantime, as a temporary measure, I would advise male parents to take airline- variety blindfolds with them when escorting their female children to public functions. In this way they can shepherd them swiftly into a cubicle of the gents' lavatory without fear of their witnessing cottaging, though I understand there is a very low incidence of cottaging at agricultural shows.
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