party
Stratton resigns – but the row isn't over
The row over the Downing Street ‘party’ has claimed its first victim. On Wednesday Allegra Stratton announced that she was…
Will the public take Plan B seriously?
After holding strong for two weeks, fears over the Omicron variant look set to change the government’s course on Covid…
An elegy on the end of elegance
Gstaad During these dark, endless periods of lockdown, let’s take a trip down memory lane to a time when we…
Dear Mary: how do I confront a work colleague who has bad BO?
Q. My son is having his 30th birthday next weekend and has invited 50 friends to a garden party. We…
Joan Collins: The night I got a TV star to flash Boris Johnson
It has been a spring of party madness in London and New York. I was lucky enough to have several…
Dear Mary: What should you do when friends invite you to lunch but don’t offer wine?
Q. I was invited to birthday drinks in London. On my way there the name of someone I haven’t heard…
Dear Mary: What do I say when people want to visit my family’s stately home for free?
Q. My husband and I were among the first to arrive at a recent large house party in Scotland. We…
Dear Mary: How can I pin down flakey party-goers?
Q. My 50th birthday is looming and I am hosting a small dinner in a restaurant. This has proved challenging…
Mary answers your problems: How can I stop guests from showing up early?
Q. Twice in one week I have been found unready for my guests. Occasion one: in the garden, finishing my…
Dear Mary: why have all my friends given me scented candles?
Q. My super successful son kindly gave a birthday dinner party for me in a glamorous London club. I have never…
My old columns are a form of purgatory
I drank Bombay gin and Fever-Tree tonic on the half-empty easyJet flight to Gatwick. I was even offered ice cubes.…
Dear Mary: Our granddaughters are giving money away to a cause we do not support. Should we cut off their funding?
Q. We have two granddaughters working hard and happily at university. It is our pleasure to give them some cash…
Dear Mary: What do you do when too many people accept a party invitation?
Q. What can be done when more people than you can cater for accept an invitation? We are giving a…
Dear Mary: My neighbour is planning a girls’ night in — how can I escape?
Q. Although I have met most of the fellow occupants of my building at residents’ meetings, we don’t socialise. However…
Dear Mary: How can I make visiting friends realise it is a burden to take them to see the sights?
Q. I am an impoverished artist living in a famously cheap European city, largely for reasons of economy. I love…
Dear Mary: How do you persuade your drunk friend to leave a party when the taxi arrives?
Q. How do you persuade someone drunk to leave a party when it doesn’t make sense for them to stay?…
Dear Mary: I don’t want perfumed people to hold my baby
Q. Is there a polite way of not letting someone hold your baby? I love giving mine to people to…
Praise, insults, posh gin – and other perils of the book launch
Rachel Johnson, in last week’s Spectator diary, says that her husband says she only writes a book in order to…
Cicero’s advice for defeated politicians (Alastair Campbell, take note)
The great Robert Harris has defended the pollsters who got the elections so wrong by quoting Cicero on the electorate’s…
The kindness of strangers you need the morning after
Spectator Life’s third birthday party was a glamorous affair. It had paps, pop stars and Pippa. One went in and…
Dear Mary: Someone told me their extraordinary life story, but I tuned the whole thing out
Q. After a recent dinner I found myself on a two-seater sofa enjoying the restful company of a woman who…
The missed New Year opportunities I would have rowed the Atlantic for
Gstaad The very end of 2014 laid an egg, and an expensive one at that. I missed David Tang’s bash…
Bidding a fond, and drunken, farewell to the awe-inspiring Mark Amory
Rubbing shoulders with political suits on the pavement outside the Westminster Arms, I drank two pints of Spitfire. Pump primed,…
Fear and libertarianism in Las Vegas
Great God, Vegas is an awful place. I realised this the moment I arrived. My cab driver — who’d been…
Joan Collins's notebook: Captain Phillips is great, but Gravity sent me to sleep
All eyes on the Philippines this week, and rightly so. Godspeed to those American and British ships making their way…
