YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Q. One of my friends in California has been sending me unsolicited shaggy dog stories by e-mail. Sometimes they go on for several pages. I have attempted to put her off with English-style hints but it doesn't appear to work and I have taken to deleting them unread. Recently an Irish friend in London has started to do it too. Again, I delete the e-mails unread. My concern is that one day I might delete something important like a cri de coeur. How can I stop them sending the junk jokes?
Name and address withheld A. E-mail has become fairly passive aggres- sion. Some e-mailers are trying to display their writing skills in a small-time form of vanity publishing. Others use it as free ther- apy, banging on about themselves at great length without fear of interruption. Office workers complain that they are e-mailed instead of spoken to•by people at the next desk who are frightened of confrontation or being disagreed with, but since you are not in an office you can ensure you do not throw out the cri de coeur with the bath water by using the following method. Nui- sance e-mailers should receive this message by return: 'Since this customer has a very low band width connection to the Internet, please restrict messages to "urgent" and
Dear Mary.. .
under 100 words.' Put a hundred names in the address field to give the impression that what you are sending out is an automated response. Since it will appear not to be focused on the individual who gets it, no one can be offended.
Q. My 18-year-old daughter has been silly enough to have had her nose pierced. What can be done about the hole which will remain long after she has grown out of wearing the stupid nose rings?
M.G.W., London W11 A. Pop along to your local theatrical make- up suppliers, Screenface at 24 Powis Ter- race, London W11 1JH (0171 221 8289), and pick up a tube of flesh-coloured `wound filler' at £7.45. This naturally adhe- sive wax product can be safely applied on top of the hole — rather like ice on a pond. It will minimise the disfigurement until such time in the far-distant future when medical science has advanced far enough to enable cosmetic surgeons to perform flesh- based reversal on these eyesores so popular among the impressionable young. Inciden- tally, after use wound filler can be picked off like a scab.
Q. May I pass on a domestic tip to readers? Have a carpenter knock up a set of pigeon- holes — one for each member of the household — and affix them somewhere strategic, such as in your kitchen. This means that tidying up can be effected in a trice as one simply bungs everything that people have left lying around into their respective pigeonholes. (They should be of a decent size.) N.G., London SW1 A. Thank you for submitting your tip. Readers with enough space should erect a second set of pigeonholes inside their front doors. Into these can be bunged things they might forget to take with them when going out — keys, rolls of film to be developed, bunches of flowers, sporting kit and the
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