YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary. . .
Q. We've just moved to the country. Do we have to give our guests in the spare bathroom brand-new, wrapped-up guest soap on both basin and bath, or can they share the melting, slimy slivers from the guests before them? Neither option really appeals. Can you advise, Mary?
G.C, Banbuty A. You must supply brand-new bars of soap for each new guest arriving at your country house. The same applies to a London bathroom, of course. Perhaps you have not thought through the implications of the provenance of a non-new bar of soap, and its likely recent adjacency to the 'entry points' of previous guests' bodies. Wrapped soap, however, is unacceptable, since this strikes too hotel-like a note. There is no need to bankrupt yourself with giant Floris cakes of it, attractive as they may be. Buy handbasinsized guest-soaps for these visits. They are easily large enough to accommodate all the soaping needs of any visitors for at least two days at a time.
Q. I have a friend who is always on the telephone. She has a maddening BT service called Call Waiting: The number you are calling knows you are waiting.' So you hold on for hours, then the voice says, 'Sorry, please try later.' How can I force her to cancel this and get a plain answering machine (or BT Call Minder)? I often have to call eight or nine times to get through, and it is infuriating.
G.C., London WI I A. Call Waiting costs £4.50 a quarter, but Call Minder is only 15.99 a quarter extra. Walk into your friend's living quarters and ask if you can use her telephone. Hand over the sum of £5.99 as you do so. While your friend is protesting that you need not pay for the call and, anyway, £5.99 is too much, dial 150. the BT number for residential customer services and request that Call Minder be installed on the number you are speaking from. Decisive action is clearly needed to nip this passive aggression in the bud.
Q. I understand that the writer Andrew Barrow will be having an exhibition later this month at the Rebecca Hossack gallery in Fitzrovia. This will consist of collages largely constructed out of envelopes, letters and postcards that have been sent to him. As I have written a number of sometimes rather personal letters to Barrow during the last year or so, I dread seeing some of these now incorporated into artworks. What procedures can I take to prevent this gross intrusion into my private life?
Name and address withheld A. Your anxiety is understandable, but I have made inquiries with the artist concerned and can confirm that none of your own correspondence will be used in the exhibition. To minimise future worries of this sort, why not write all your letters in a bright, tomato-red-coloured, broad felttip pen? This would not only render them so unsightly as to rule out their use in a future work of art, it would also ensure their swift consignment to a wastepaper basket where they would be beyond the grasp of future biographers.
Mary Killen
If you have a problem, please write to Dear Mary, c/a The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC I N 2LL.
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