YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary. . .
Q. My husband and I are enjoying making new friends in the small country town where we recently bought a weekend house. Unfortunately, several of these friends of whom we are fond have ghastly children who are as feral as the raccoons in our woods. Local custom seems to demand that children be welcomed at any adult gathering, and one is made to feel most inhospitable and absolutely heartless if one excludes them. Last year our Boxing Day party was a nightmare because the children ran wild, breaking glass, damaging uphol- stery etc. while their parents ignored them. How can we prevent this from happening again? To make matters worse, we have relatives and old friends whom we would like to invite who have charming, well- behaved, thoroughly lovely children, chil- dren we would truly welcome. Please advise.
E.M, New York City A. The dilemma you describe is increas- ingly common. Now that physical methods of disciplining children are outmoded, parents often find that appeals to reason, or to their children's better nature, fall on stony ground. It will therefore be neces- sary for you to hire a professional chil- dren's entertainer — in the form of an unsuccessful actor, mime artist or juggler — preferably on another floor or, ideally, within a heated outbuilding. The children can be locked in on the pretext that adults are being locked out and, with Alastair Campbell-style spinning, the whole exclu- sion can be passed off as a treat. Mean- while the adults can relax.
Q. Apropos the menace of the mobile phone soliloquy, of which no nationality seems to have a monopoly (T.T., 11 December), you might find the following alternative strategy worthy of considera- tion. Having wasted many hours over the years in airport lounges awaiting the delayed departure of aircraft, I have been in the habit of carrying a small battery- operated dictating device in my briefcase in the (usually forlorn) hope of finding a quiet corner in which to catch up on replies to correspondence or other over- due tasks. When the adjacent monologue commences, one takes the device out and with obvious deliberation sets it in the record mode (a small red light is evident) with the microphone visibly orientated towards the lunatic. This alone is usually sufficient to induce the telephonist to lower his voice, turn his back, or sheepishly to move away. Occasionally, this perfor- mance is met with the idiotic demand, 'Are you recording my conversation?' and the absurd protest that this constitutes an `intrusion' on what he claims is his 'priva- cy'. To this reaction the correct riposte in my experience is to explain gently but with manifest pride that one has been commis- sioned by an important publishing house to write the definitive work The Mobile Phone: An Oral History, and that one is col- lecting authentic original material. The implicit threat of future publication of the banalities in question invariably has the desired deterrent effect.
J.D.C., Luxembourg A. Thank you for your stimulating letter.
Mary Killen
If you have a problem, write to Dear Mary, c/o The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, Lon- don WC1N 21,L.
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