YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary. . .
Q. My children are going through a stage of being interested in hip-hop and rap music. The intrusion into the house of musical obscenities set to a thumping beat is bad enough, their appearance is raggedy in the extreme, but I worry most of all that, before the phase has run its course, they will have disfigured themselves permanently through getting tattoos. How can I prevent this from happening?
1-1,W., London NI A. Protect your children from taking this irreversible step by beginning to talk about having a tattoo yourself. Discuss with them whether they think you should have a chainsaw just above your groin or a smoking gun on one of your shoulders. Then go ahead and have one of the new breed of temporary tattoos, flashing it at them at every opportunity. This will soon turn them off the idea of being tattooed themselves.
Q. My parents taught me to move within reasonable proximity of an intended interlocutor before initiating conversation. My wife believes that intervening walls should not impede the free exchange of ideas, providing each party shouts loudly enough. Our children now follow this lead, and all three happily screech at each other, typically between kitchen (child one), drawing
room (child two) and bedroom (their mother). My reluctance to join in from the bathroom, while brushing my teeth, is assumed to be a consequence of approaching deafness or senility. Unless you can think of a better solution. Mary, I may have to install a Tannoy system or issue mobile telephones.
Name and address withheld A. Old habits die hard and your wife was clearly brought up in a household where shouting between rooms was the norm. The children are naturally following her lead, since it is the easiest one to follow. Short of fitting fire-hinges on all the doors so they clunk shut automatically, you will have to use aversion therapy to re-educate your family. Buy or borrow a dog and secretly train it to respond to raised voices by bursting into peals of barking. They will swiftly learn that any attempts to communicate
through shouting will be drowned by dog noise and the problem will quietly resolve itself.
Q. Have you any tips for making a long, cross-country car journey less nightmarish? I have to drive from Norfolk to Exeter about once a month.
TB., Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk A. The secret of driving happily across 'New' England is to realise that the main source of misery is not the traffic queues or needing to go to the loo, but the sense of profound alienation and despair that inevitably follows after stopping at a motorway services station. Fill up before leaving home, drink hot liquid from a thermos and simply plough on past them. May I take this opportunity to recommend a beacon of civility, just 200 yards from Exit 14 on the M4, where racingworld figure Charlie Brooks owns a stonefloored, fruit-machine-free hostelry? The Pheasant at Shefford Woodlands offers fresh BSE-free food and all the gaiety of a 50 per cent racing-world clientele. (To book: 01488 648284).
Mary Killen
If you have a problem write to Dear Maly, clo The Spectator, 56 Doughty Sweet, London WC1N 2LL.
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