YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary.. .
Q. An elderly literary couple, whose com- pany we enjoy, are frequent guests at our table. No one would deny that eccentricity is part of their charm, but the male member of the partnership has lately begun to load his pockets, as well as his plate, with items from the serving dishes in front of him. His wife — also a former don — does not seem to notice, though presumably he makes some sort of fry-up out of his booty later on chez eux. Short of 'dishing up' in the kitchen, school dinners style, how should we go about arresting this development?
Name withheld, Oxford.
4. Why not impose textural restriction into the dishes you offer the couple? Were you to serve only such items as soup, soft roes in creamed spinach, vegetable curries, syl- labubs and the like, this pilfering polymath would soon come a cropper. He will get the Message that chez vous food-filching will be frowned upon.
Q. My elder brother and his much younger wife and small child are paranoiac about carpet hygiene. They expect their guests to remove their shoes when entering the house. They walk about in their socks or bare feet and keep easily slipped-on `sabot'-type footwear by their outside doors. Guests who are unaware of this bizarre house rule are sometimes upset or uncomfortable. When I visited them I was wearing highish blots laced up to the knee and, being asked to remove them, found it particularly irritating because there was no hall chair to sit on, and I had a ladder in my stocking. I was relieved that my husband's younger brother wasn't with us -- he has an artifi- cial leg. How do you suggest I counter this annoying ploy?
P.W. Bildeston, Ipswich, Suffolk A. Next time you visit your brother bring along a packet of disposable face masks of the type worn ostentatiously by London cyclists. Pop one on your face and offer them around the room saying, 'You're quite right, you know. You can't be too careful these days.' Opening up the debate against modern health hazards in this way will enable you to 'out' your brother and his wife as being overtly neurotic about the risks.
With reference to the annoyance your Cornish correspondent suffers when being asked at parties whether he is a painter or a writer, I always find the following com- ment is helpful for deflating fantasists (29 April). When someone at a party tells me, `I'm writing a novel,' I always reply, 'Nei- ther am I.'
D.L. London, WC1 A. Thank you for your suggestion.
Mary Killen
If you have a problem write to Mary Killen, clo The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, Lon- don WC1N 2LL.
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