Q. My wife and! have between us received invitations to
no fewer than 17 parties being held in London on Wednesday, 12 November, all of them drinks parties between 630 and 9 p.m. How should we tackle this emban-as de richesse? Although five of the parties are in SW!, it is my experience that even if two parties are virtually in the same street, it still takes 20 minutes at the very least to leave one party, enter another, hand in one's coat, wait for a drink, then push through the throng to the host. There also seems to be no way of knowing what time a party will be good at. For example, the other night I went to the V&A opening of the Gothic exhibition at which the only person was the minister Stephen Twigg, who was being heckled. Meanwhile my wife, arriving at 7.45, met people of the calibre of Sir Edward Poynings,
English soldier and diplomatist. What should we do? We are nearly distraught.
Name and address withheld
A. Go to none of the parties. Stay loftiO., at home and get on with your correspondence or some reading you need to catch up with. Instead throw a patty yourself in three weeks' time to which you invite all 17 hosts of the rival parties you mention. In this way you can satisfi your curiosity without there being any sense of panic.
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