Q. I am 16 and am looking forward to the
delights of Daymer Bay in Cornwall, a meeting-ground renowned for its nightly teenage public-school gatherings. I am somewhat nervous as I do not smoke, and most of my friends use cigarettes as tools of entry into a circle of people. How, Mary, can I avoid the terrible prospect of being left standing alone, and thus immediately being classified as a loser?
M.M.H., Wooton Rivers, Wiltshire
A. lam reliably informed that the correct etiquette for those wishing to enter a conversational cluster on Daymer Bay is to simply walk into it saying Blahblahblah.' This is an ironic nod to the artificiality of opening gambits, an acknowledgment that everyone on Daymer Bay is in the same boar and all are keen to penetrate the
conversational clusters with the minimum pain and embarrassment.
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