YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Dear Mary.. .
Q. My wife and I are getting on in years but still like to entertain. However, my wife will insist on telling (in a droning voice) long and convoluted stories, involving many inci- dental characters, about her childhood in Donegal. These she repeats ad nauseam regardless of whether the audience has heard them before. Moreover, they seem to go down quite well. But I have now heard them so often that I get visibly irritated and sometimes leave the table or sweep crumbs. The anecdotes are formulaic and my wife rarely alters the syntax — if she did it might make them more interesting for me. How should I cope with this ordeal?
G.W, Beaumaris, Anglesey A. If you are, as you say, of a certain age, then you might find it useful to use your wife's stories to gauge your own mental agility. If you really do know them by heart you could test your memory against its inevitable decline by mentally reciting the stories a fraction of a second before your wife's verbal delivery. The self-interest this would afford you would help to quell the tedium and you would soon begin to antici- pate the anecdotes with genuine enthusi- asm. Q. Is there any way that we can break the deadly and gruelling sequence of family Christmases this year? Each side of our family takes it in turns to play host and in theory it is a nice idea, but all too often deep resentments surface and the occasion turns sour. It is only August but the in-laws are pressing us for an answer.
K.C.W., Salop A. Why not arrange to do charitable work on Christmas Day itself — such as helping out at a London shelter for the homeless? You can then set off, with a clear con- science and some like-minded friends, on Boxing Day, having arranged to stay until New Year at an agreeable sunspot in a remote corner of the globe. You need not
spell out to your family the exact date of your departure.
Q. My parents are hooked on the news. First the six o'clock news, then the nine o'clock news, and then the ten o'clock news — my father says he likes to 'see the differ- ent angles'. The panic-mongering music which precedes the news seems to bring on a sort of conditioned reflex. They drop everything and rush to the television. How can I deprogramme them?
A.S. K, Thorpe-le-Soken A. It might be salutary for you to tape the music of News at Ten or one of the other frightening theme tunes, and play it at ran- dom intervals during the day. Your parents will rush, in Pavlovian manner, to the tele- vision set for as many times as it takes them to see the humorous nature of their addiction. Try playing the tape in the mid- dle of the night when they are asleep.
Mary Killen
If you have a problem, please write to 'Dear Mary, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London, WC1N 2LL.
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