YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary. . .
Q. My husband is a DIY fanatic. He is cur- rently cobbling the area in front of our house in a listed village. It is a painstaking job which he is tackling with admirable pre- cision. Unfortunately, he is being driven almost mad by the number of visitors to our village who seem to think he is part of some sort of heritage re-enactment of traditional skills and who come up, chuckling, to chat to him. What is the most dismissive answer my husband can give when tourists say to him 'You've got a job on there!' or 'Are you winning?' He does not wish to be rude.
G.A.W, Astbtay A. Your husband would do well to purchase a pair of protective ear-coverings as worn by users of power-drills. In order to give them validity, he need only allow an electric drill on a flex to dangle from your own household to grace the cobblestones. In this way he can simply ignore intrusive tourists without giving offence.
Q. I am a 50-year-old divorced male who has recently moved to Aldeburgh. What is the least effeminate shopping bag to carry when making purchases in the high street?
N.H., Aldeburgh A. The ideal shopping basket for a hetero- sexual male to carry is a deep Kenyan straw basket or kikapou. As it is rugged in appearance, it is an acceptable load-bearer and will give no grounds for confusion to your new neighbours.
Q. My 21-year-old daughter has just left Lancaster University with a rather poor 2.2 degree in Social Sciences. To my alarm, she has decided to travel through south-east Asia until such time as the job market in England picks up. Can you suggest a way in which I can monitor her progress through all those appalling countries where she is determined to hitch-hike alone? She tells me she is 'laid back enough' to cope with any potentially dangerous episodes.
S.B., Chagford A. Strike a deal with your daughter. Inform her, as she sets off on her journey, that you
will reward each facsimile transmission of a 200-word account of what she has been recently doing and plans to do with an immediate money order telegraphed direct to the next town on her route. You will find that your daughter keeps in regular contact.
Q. Can you recommend any amusing new party games to play around the dinner table? Things are rather dull and pre- dictable in our neck of the woods.
C.H., Stockport A. Why not try out the new game Predicto- babble'? Each member of a dinner party lays bets before dinner on the topics of con- versation which will be covered by each of those guests at least one place away from him or her (to avoid cheating). Given a plan of the placement, they decide what topics Miss X and Mr Y are most and least likely to cover and what topics Mr W and Miss X are most and least likely to cover. Though many guests begin by determining not to cover the topics that they feel others may feel they are most likely to, they usual- ly, by the second course and the fourth glass of wine, lapse into an all too great predictability. In this way many laughs can be had and money can be made. Also gen- tle insults can be levelled with impunity.
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