Q. Further to your letter regarding the telephone habits of
foreigners, would they by any chance be Greek? Married for 20 years to a Greek, I am aware that no convention attaches at all to what we consider to be good manners. Calls will be placed and accepted at any place and any time without restraint on the length, volume or banality of the discussion. I have regularly been to dinner parties where invitees settle on the sofa, among other guests, and as many as two or three of them will make outgoing calls which are manifestly not urgent. Remonstration is received with puzzlement as there is no recognition of any rudeness.
R. McM., by email A. My previous correspondent was complaining, as it happens, about someone of Indian lineage, not Greek, but as far as I know the offence is not racially linked. To talk into a mobile at length, when the call is not urgent and while your three-dimensional interlocutor is at hand restlessly waiting for you to finish is, of course, not the behaviour of a gentleman. People who do this are generally insecure about their status and/or their job. The irony is that, particularly in these frantic times, the more inaccessible one is, the more desirable. Even in the money market, the biggest of wigs is rarely seen answering his mobile when in company. The ‘crackberry’ gave a bit of trouble when it was first launched, but owners have since learnt to repress their addiction since to succumb to it resulted in a certain loss of dignity.
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