YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary.. .
Q. While I always enjoy reading your solu- tions to problems, and quite liked the one you produced for someone's 'generally marvellous daily who enjoys her gin' (24 April), it put me in mind of an even better solution which was related to me 30 years ago by an Edinburgh couple. Anxious to keep their daily, they ensured her job satis- faction by locking their drinks cupboard but always leaving three fingers of whisky in a rumbler in the middle of an otherwise bare kitchen table.
S. C-S., London SW7 `4. Thank you for your considerate letter.
Q. What is the correct euphemism, current- ly in vogue, for what used to be known socially as 'pooh' in my day?
H.S., Ovington Mews, London SW7 4. I presume you are referring to waste expelled rectally. Though 'pooh' and 'num- ber two' are still in common usage, these terms have recently been toppled by the more popular 'splash'.
Q. Our driver has an irritating habit of cracking his knuckles, finger by finger: first one hand, then the other. This grating ritu- al seems to occur at any stop light or traffic hold-up. And he's not alone. Others do it. Even clients. Is there anything I can say to these people to express my irritation and to encourage them to desist?
S.T.L., Taiwan A. On hearing the cracking you must imme- diately cry, in concerned tones, 'Don't do that! You'll give yourself rheumatism!' You may then pretend that you have just read an article in the Lancet which identifies knuckle-cracking as the major cause or trig- ger of digital rheumatoid conditions. It is unlikely that perpetrators would bother to check through back numbers of the Lancet for proof of your assertion. Q. I am not particularly mean but I am a foodie. Fresh foie gras at my local charcu- terie costs around £3.85 a quarter, which is roughly 96 pence an ounce. When the char- cuterie throws on one of those silver- backed pieces of cardboard, which weigh about one and a half ounces in their own right, and does not reset the scales to nought, I find myself getting hot under the collar. I do not say anything as I don't wish to appear mean at the same time as greedy. What do you suggest? M.C., London WI A. Why not enter the shop and say, for example, `Ah . could I have 12 ounces of foie gras and, sorry, could you put it on a treble sheet of cardboard — my wife has a bit of a thing about it and she likes a treble sheet.' No need to explain any further. When the arrow on the scales leaps to four and a half ounces you can then cry Woost- erishly, 'I say, look at that! You'd better reset the dial to nought!'
Mary Killen
If you have a problem, send it to Dear Mary, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1.
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