YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Q. Can you suggest a way of tactfully telling a work colleague that he has very bad body odour?
P.W, South Norwood A. The offence given to others by the poor hygiene routines of work colleagues (and often by the personal gases such people give off absent-mindedly) is a problem which plagues many readers. Starting with the problem of 'death breath', I find it helpful to use acting skills to tip off the perpetrator without hurting his or her feel- ings. Greet him, or her, as normally before springing back in surprise and horror, your face a mask of affectionate revulsion. 'Good Lord!' you cry. 'What on earth have you been eating? I've never smelt such a strong smell of garlic in my life.' Often the offender will reply, 'I haven't eaten any garlic,' in bemusement. If so, you can say, dramatically, 'You must have something trapped in your teeth, then, because your breath is normally absolutely alpine-fresh.' Buoyed up by the idea that this is the first time they have suffered from death breath, such people are often willing to discuss the problem. Corporeal hygiene problems can be dealt with in a similar manner. Spring- ing back in amazement, you can say to the offender, 'Good grief, what have you got in your pockets? There's the most dreadful
Dear Mary.. .
smell of rotten food — you must have sat up against something somewhere because you never normally smell badly at all.' Use the optional codicil, 'but then I've just had my sinuses cleared ... ', if you get no favourable response.
Q. I am a speechwriter who sometimes works for a certain Opposition party unnecessary to name. I come into close contact with a particular front-bench spokesman who, through a genuine demo- cratic ideal, is at his best on large public occasions when he likes to talk and mingle with what he calls 'ordinary, decent work- ing men and women'. However, so arduous are his administrative chores that he often overlooks his personal hygiene to the extent that his hair, hands and nails are dirty and, quite frankly, he smells. In them-
selves, these failings are trivial but recently the public have begun to shrink from his proffered handshake and cheery greetings as if he were a Molokai leper. His exclu- sion is visibly wounding to him though he is utterly baffled as to its cause. Since he has an infamously abrupt temper, neither his family, his colleagues, his agent, his researchers, his fellow union members nor I myself make any reference to the subject. What is to be done?
Alex, SW6 A. In your particular case, you might circu- late a memo to your immediate colleagues for the particular attention of the spokesman. A new dirty tricks campaign is rumoured to be under way in the run-up to the general election. A spray-on, body odour-inducing agent called 'Skunk', nor- mally used by wild-life documentary mak- ers to protect the animals they are filming from predators, is in use in the corridors of power. Rival party-workers are said to be finding methods of spraying MPs with 'Skunk' before public meetings as a means of discrediting them among their support- ers. You therefore advise that all those likely to be affected should he extra vigi- lant about hygiene and should constantly ask colleagues to tip them off if they sus- pect they may have been sprayed.
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