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Dear Mary

Dear Mary: Is it an insult to be given anti-ageing cream?

Plus: How to keep Wi-Fi out of your holiday cottage

30 August 2014

9:00 AM

30 August 2014

9:00 AM

Q. When someone gives you anti-ageing cream as a present, is that an insult or a compliment?
— A.O., Provence

A. It is both, but such creams make pointless presents. Cosmetics are all to do with suggestibility: for them to work, the user must be the one who has studied the spiel on the packaging and decided it seems plausible.

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