YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Q. How does one best cure the condition of 'roving trotters'? I enjoy cooking and having people to supper but find my hackles rising when certain friends come into the kitchen — supposedly to offer help or to chat to me. What they really want to do is start plucking handfuls of food out of whatever bowls and saucepans they can find, saying `Mmm' as they uninhibitedly gobble down key nuggets of the dishes I am about to offer. How can I stop them without betraying my own greed? HMM, Clanricarde Gardens, W2 A. Why not take up their offer of help as soon as they come through the kitchen door? The ideal task to give them is that of holding a heavy tray while you load it for them — slowly and absent-mindedly. Thus manually disabled they will be in no position to give their trotters freedom to rove among the dishes you are displaying.
Q. Have you any suggestions for ways in which one can repay hospitality and debts of friendship to people who, regrettably, one finds too dull to invite to dinner or on
holiday? AC, W8
A. Indeed. Now that so much of social life
Dear
Mary. . .
revolves around the raising of sums for charity this affords a hostess the perfect opportunity to work off dullards. Simply buy some tickets to a concert or play which is being staged in aid of charity and there will be no need for you to spend any time `One's a Croatian dove, the other's Serbian.' in conversation with your worthy friends. No doubt, they too will enjoy an evening more where they are under no obligations to be amusing.
Q. My husband and I are heading up to Scotland on Saturday to spend a week with my father-in-law, who takes a fishing lodge every year at this time. There will be about 20 other people there but my nerves are already jangling in anticipation because my father-in-law has this habit of speaking while he has a frog in his thoat. He is a charming man in every other way but how can I inoffensively suggest that he clear his throat?
LM, Berks A. As after-dinner games are often a feature of such Scottish house parties why not suggest that guests play the gargling game from the popular radio show Sorry, I Haven't a Clue? This game involves contes- tants attempting to gargle a well-known song instead of singing it, while others attempt to identify the tune in question. This should clear the blockage in your father-in-law's throat once and for all.
Mary Killen
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