YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
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Dear Mary.
Q. As a well-known novelist I am always being introduced at drinks parties to people who are `fans' of my work. It seems churlish not to want to spend an evening talking to a sequence of complete strangers who are 'fans' but I find the whole thing very artifi- cial. I feel I have to put on a pretence of being nice and Terry Woganish about it, being terribly genial and on the same level and making a show of how unaffected I am. Yet the only reason I have come to the party is to get drunk and talk to people I already know. I would not mind, but I tend to get stuck with my 'fans' while I have no difficulty at all in moving on to circulate from people whose company I have been relishing. What do you suggest?
Name and address withheld Al: Take up a position in a busy corridor With your back against the wall, preferably near the entrance to the party. This means that anyone stopping to talk to you will be forced to move on after a couple of minutes — rather like vans stopping in Oxford Street. On the other hand, you can inter- cept people you do want to talk to and — by turning to face them sideways on — pro-
vide a space where you can detain them for as long as necessary.
Q. I have received an obscene fax. How can I find out who has sent it? When I dial the 'transmitter' number on the top of the page I just get a high-pitched noise and directory enquiries say they are unable to tell me whose number it is.
H.S., W8 A. Do not call the police as most obscene faxes are sent by close friends who are try- ing to be funny. If this turns out to have been the case, your friends may be prose- cuted. Instead you should fax back a mes- sage saying, 'Please identify yourself or I
will have to ask the police to intervene.' If you have no response after three days you can take the step you have threatened.
Q. I live in a fourth-floor flat near Bays- water Road. My wife is very good at all domestic tasks but she is fanatical about 'airing'. Not just bedclothes but suitcases, picnic hampers — any object which could possibly be 'aired' — are left perched pre- cariously on our kitchen window-sill. On two occasions objects have fallen to the street below, luckily without injuring any- one, yet she remains obdurate about her habit and refuses to believe that it is a dan- gerous one. What do you suggest?
H.M.M., 1472 A. Wait till your wife goes shopping and, as she is emerging from the front door of your building, allow some lettuces to tumble out of the window onto her head. The injuries she will receive from well-chosen lettuces will be light, yet she will get a short sharp shock sufficient to encourage her to mend her ways before she has to face a civil action.
Mary Killen
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