YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Q. I leave next Sunday for Greece on a yacht. I am sailing with three men. Do I crouch on my bunk with the hair-drier to dry my knickers or is there a socially acceptable way to dry intimate underwear while at sea?
E.P.
A. Why not bring boxer shorts for use as Your underwear for the duration of this trip? These you may leave with impunity to dry in a public place, as each of the three men will presume they belong to one of the other two.
Q. I recently went to a dinner party held by an old friend who is known to be a hopeless cook. Arriving a bit early, I found her decanting frozen mince into a sauce, adding a can of tomatoes, then leaving it on a high flame for half-an-hour. This formed the sauce for spaghetti, and was inedible — chunks of unfrozen mince catching the teeth like grit. We all soldiered on and ate up the disgusting meal as far as we could; apart from this it was actually a very jolly and enjoyable dinner party. In spite of a robust digestion, I was violently ill in the night — as, I'm sure, were most of the
Dear Mary. . .
other guests. (I didn't know them — they seemed to be her new set.) What kind of thank-you letter should I write? I don't want to upset her (she is very touchy) by telling her that her cooking is seriously awful and potentially dangerous, but I feel I should let her know in some way so that she can do something about it.
B.J., SW1 A. Write a letter to your friend expressing your sincere sentiments of enjoyment of the evening. Then add that you also enjoyed the food so much that a couple of nights later you attempted to recreate the same dish for three guests, copying exactly the method you had observed her using. You must have done something wrong some-
where along the line, however, as all four of you went down with food poisoning. The other three insist that you should not have used frozen mince as it is a known diar- rhoeic and emetic, and one of them is so ill he is threatening to sue. Would she there- fore be kind enough to spell out the exact step-by-step procedure for this recipe so that you can be sure of your ground in the event of a legal action? Your friend should be sufficiently unnerved to ensure that she double-checks before damning herself in writing.
Q. What is the correct method of blowing one's nose when seated at a busy lunch table, back against the wall and in the mid- dle of a banquet of people one does not wish to disrupt? P.A., Co. Tymne A. Pretend to drop your handkerchief. This will enable you to grope under the table for it. You may blow the nose area less offen- sively while your head is concealed and the visual impact therefore removed. Should there be cries of disgust, you can counter them on resurfacing with, 'That's why I took the opportunity to do it while I was under the table.'
Previous page
