YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary.
Q. I have a very nice, very pretty friend who Is longing to get married and who can't undertand why she's still single. I do. She has a large, flat, colourless mole in the cen- tre of her forehead, and as a result covers her face in thick make-up, which, of course, makes her look middle-aged. How can I let her know this blemish can be removed for only a hundred pounds? She's very shy. I long to see her happy.
R. C., London NW5 A. No doubt the blemish you mention is viral, in which case it may well have 'come up' overnight. This enables you to address the issue by pretending that one has come up on your own face. Ring your friend to arrange a date to meet, and say, 'Well, on Monday I'm having a horrible viral disc taken off my chin in Harley Street. Never mind, apparently there's hardly any scar- ring, so we should still be able to meet.' You can then meet your friend, pretending to have had the repellent protrusion removed only that morning with, of course, no visible scarring. Say, 'Isn't it marvellous? You can just pop along to this man [Trevor Robinson, for example]. He's so kind and
sympathetic and he simply whips the things off under local anaesthetic for about a hun- dred pounds!'
Q. A group of my friends regularly play bridge together, taking it in turns to host the evenings in our houses and provide sup- per. Recently, while we were settling our debts at the end of one of these evenings, our host asked us for an extra £10 a head `to cover dinner'. He thus netted himself a tidy £70, enough to cover a good propor- tion of his quarter's electricity bill, let alone the ingredients of the rudimentary dinner he provided. Was I wrong or old-fashioned to mind this inhospitable touch? Should I have refused to pay, or next time should I just take sandwiches in protest?
A distracted bridge-player, address withheld A. No, you were not wrong to mind, but you could have punished your inhospitable host by enthusing, 'Oh, what a good idea! Perhaps I should charge when people come to me! What gave you the idea?' and car- ried on in that vein until you had at least forced an apology from him.
Q. A dear bachelor friend, who is renting a room for a few months, is deeply vain and touchy yet also very short-sighted. How can I best tip him off that he is suffering from a bad case of scurf?
Name and address withheld A. Tell your friend that you have picked up head lice from some schoolchildren with whom you have been in contact, and you fear you may have passed on the affliction. Offer to check his scalp and after one or two minutes' careful scrutiny say matter-of- factly, `No, nothing there, just a touch of
scurf threatening to start. give you some special shampoo for that.'
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