Dear Mary
Dear Mary: How can I escape my neighbour’s spy cameras?
Q. I have a problem with what might be called location blindness. I live in Balham, but when I arrange…
Dear Mary: What should I do when my dinner guests dive for their iPads?
Q. We had our son’s fiancée and her family to stay recently. After dinner, expecting conversation, we were shocked to…
Dear Mary: Lunch vs the novel
Q. I travel internationally two or three times per month for work, often with one or two colleagues. While the…
Dear Mary solves problems for Sir Les Patterson, Rachel Johnson, Rory Stewart and more
Once again Mary has invited some of her favourite figures in the public eye to submit personal queries for her…
Dear Mary: How appropriate is it to send a Christmas card with the word 'merry' to a widow?
Q. Six years ago a rather glamorous man bought the house opposite me. Although he always responds to requests for…
Dear Mary: How can I tell my mother-in-law she's being mean?
Q. My egregious mother-in-law turns 80 this December. She is not short of a bob but for one of my…
Dear Mary: How to enlist people with field marshal experience to deal with bossy party hostesses
Q. A friend generously hosts an annual Christmas party in London where we see many old friends we have been…
Dear Mary: How can I be ready when Cupid strikes?
Q. Walking at a local beauty spot the other day, I passed a handsome young man. We exchanged a few…
Dear Mary: How do I empty a chamberpot without my hosts noticing?
Q. One of our daughter’s godmothers has given very generous presents but never with any regularity. She was unable to…
Dear Mary: Should I thrust my backside at other people in the theatre?
Q. I am no interior decorator, but we have a couple of rather subtle paint colours in the house that…
Dear Mary — The e-cigarette party is the new Tupperware party
Q. One of my oldest and best friends, who has lived up north for years, begged me to let her…
Dear Mary: What do I do when the pizzas arrive at the opening of my art show?
Q. I spent a week in a house party abroad, with an elderly and extremely polite friend of mine and…
Dear Mary
Q. Is it acceptable to deal with time-critical online business while attending church? Some matters just won’t wait — Glastonbury tickets…
Dear Mary: How can I make a surgeon give me my book back?
Q. Towards the end of last year, I began three months of treatment for a knee replacement. During one consultation…
How can I be a member of the Chipping Norton set?
Q. I am working on becoming a member of the Chipping Norton set. Should I be pronouncing the excellent open-air…
Dear Mary: How can I make my host pour me a drink?
Q. Some years ago, on holiday in Egypt, we found ourselves in the company of a couple who wanted to…
Dear Mary: The rules of wearing a dressing gown
Q. What to do when you are an unwilling eavesdropper in a train carriage in which people you know assume…
Dear Mary
Q. In response to correspondence re. wedding gifts: there is no need for a couple to have a list at…
Dear Mary: How can I stop this bore reading his novel aloud?
Q. Is there a polite way of halting a wannabe novelist from reading his oeuvre aloud to an unwilling audience?…
Dear Mary
Q. My boyfriend, an artist, is driving himself and others mad by his inability to keep track of his mobile.…
Dear Mary: How will I know if he really loves me?
Q. To ask for money in lieu of a wedding present (Dear Mary, 3 August) is ghastly, but an established…
Dear Mary: How can I tell her that her table manners are disgusting?
Q. My mainly male colleagues and I were happy to learn that an attractive young woman would be joining the…
Dear Mary
Q. I very recently attended my son’s black-tie leavers’ ball at his school on one of the hottest evenings of…
Dear Mary: What must I do to reclaim the best poolside chair?
Q. I know this seems petty but last year, on our villa holiday, my brother-in-law always took the best chair…
Dear Mary: Why it's fine to crash funerals
Q. Regarding the writing of ‘no presents’ on an invitation (Dear Mary, 6 July), my own experience is that many…
