31 JULY 2004, Page 54

Q. Please can you settle an argument.! recently attended a

party given by a host with a famously large fortune. I was invited as a friend of a friend. Thirty or more tables were set up throughout the downstairs of the house and we all sat down to dinner. Each table (for eight) had one or two disposable cameras on it. Was I supposed to photograph my fellow guests, then take the camera home as a souvenir for myself? Or was I supposed to leave the camera behind so that my hosts could have the photographs developed and keep them for themselves?

S.O., London SW12 A. The normal protocol is that you leave them for your hosts to develop and keep. Many hosts find that their celebrity and grandee guests prefer this method of record-keeping to the intrusion of being photographed by an unknown party photographer.