I have recently made friends with a delightful young couple and have invited them around to my house for an informal dinner party. Unfortunately, I am a completely hopeless cook. I intimated this to my friends, who immediately offered to cook the meal (I will supply the ingredients and the wine). Today, they have sent me a shopping list, but I still feel embarrassed that I am meant to be the ‘host’. I am sure you will think this is terrible etiquette! How can I repay their kindness?
Julian Hinshelwood, Marlow, Buckinghamshire
On the contrary. Not terrible etiquette at all. Mere common sense and good manners. Your friends would not offer to cook unless they wanted to. I guess that they are tickled pink to have found such an eccentric friend who cannot cook. They are anxious to show off their skills. Buy the best of the ingredients they ask for. Especially do not stint on the olive oil. You could give them a host/guest present as well; a bottle, a book or some fine food. But do learn to cook. Everybody should learn to make a decent salad dressing, an omelette, a cheese soufflé and a dish for special entertaining. Mine is chicken marengo. Bon appétit.
What is the correct etiquette when someone brings a good bottle of wine to your dinner party? I have always thought it good manners to open and share the bottle so I must admit to having been greatly disappointed at having to drink cheap ‘plonk’, knowing that the bottle I have brought with me is hidden in a cupboard somewhere.
Nikki Clark, address withheld
It is certainly good manners to take a bottle of wine as a present for your host(ess). But the host should thank the guest warmly, put the bottle away for another time and serve the wine he had already arranged for dinner. If the gift horse is red, wine snobs would say that it is too late to open it now and let it breathe. If it is white, it is too late to chill it to the right temperature. If it is disgusting plonk, you and your guests had better stick to your own bottles.
What is the form on footwear when entertaining at home? May I wear my smart new slippers?
Caroline Spiller, Northampton
The paramount virtue of footwear is that it should be comfortable. I have received visitors in my tasteful red socks (and, of course, other garments). For family, friends and for me, wear your beautiful, comfortable new slippers.
Some friends from Yorkshire are coming to stay in our London home for a few days while their daughter settles into her new flat. When we stayed with them they entertained us constantly with outings and dinner parties. Do you think they will expect the same? We are a bit anxious as we both go out to work and usually assume our guests will find plenty to do in London for themselves. How can we make them feel welcome without turning ourselves into tour guides?
Name and address withheld
There is more to do in London even than in Yorkshire. In my experience, visitors to London do not want full-time guides. They enjoy exploring the great playground for themselves. Buy The Times with The Knowledge on Saturday, or any of the other almost-as-excellent guides to what’s on. Have a guide to streets, buses and the Underground available, the largest scale that you can afford. You will want to take them out on one evening to a special local treat, if you can find something that is not available in Yorkshire.
I am, by any standards, a healthy eater. Plenty of fresh fruit and veg, good-quality bread and a limited amount of high-quality fish and meat. The inside of my fridge has never seen a burger or a white sliced loaf. However, good friends of mine are staying in my apartment for a week when I go on holiday and I know that everything they buy to eat and drink has to be organic, whereas I have never been convinced of the necessity for that and suspect that the organic label is just an excuse to put up the price. Should I bow to what I think is just a fad of theirs and go out and buy a stock of food and drink with the ‘organic’ label?
P. M., Canterbury
I should stick to your normal shopping, rather than indulge the fetishes and fads of your foolish friends. You are doing as much as can be expected of a generous friend by letting them have your apartment. I share your opinion that 90 per cent of the organic food craze is a racket. Set your friends a good example by stocking up your fridge and larder with your normal food for Everyman and Everywoman.
What is the correct etiquette for soap when a guest is in a private house? Is it generally expected that visitors will have brought soap – and would most people be horrified at guests using the family bar lying on the side of the bath? No one seems to use those little guest soaps which my grandmother’s generation used to exchange as Christmas gifts.
Name and address withheld
The thoughtful (generous) host puts a small bar of soap still in its wrapping beside the basin and the bath for her/his guests. The excessively prudent guest travels with his/her soap in his/her sponge bag. Many houses are well equipped with little individual guest soaps, shampoos and bath gel removed from hotels and conferences. But soap etiquette varies between households, ages and the degree of guest/host familiarity.
At a dinner party, I understand that it is usual etiquette to set places so that they are boy-girl-boy-girl etc. But does the same rule apply if there are gay couples attending? Surely couples, whatever their gender, should be allowed to sit together?
Danny Robinson, Manchester
At some occasions it is considered bad form to seat couples near each other, on the grounds that they have plenty of other opportunities for talking to each other. Even the convention that you seat boy-girl-boy-girl alternately is regarded as somewhat Edwardian in trendy circles. The duty of the host(ess) is to plan the seating as diplomatically as he can in advance, and to encourage social intercourse. I do not think that the sex of neighbours at the dinner table is the prime consideration.
I hosted a small party recently and forgot to invite a friend. He found out about it and wants to know why he was excluded. There was no reason, it wasn’t malicious, I simply forgot. However, I realise this alone could be quite upsetting (as if I am saying ‘You are very forgettable!’). What can I do to make things up with him?
Henry, Hampstead
O Lord! O Blessed St Jude, patron of desperate absent-mindedness! These errors of forgetfulness are easy to commit, and tricky to mend. I should take your friend out for a drink or a meal, and put on an apologetic feather-brained act. I do not find this difficult. Absolute honesty is unkind on such occasions. You should fib like a trooper to soothe your friend’s hurt pride. This is called a white lie, or politeness, or generosity. If he is a friend, he may see through your protestations, but he should keep mum and forgive you.
I have friends and relatives that come on unannounced visits and make sarcastic comments about how I am dressed. I would never criticise somebody else’s clothes, especially in their own home. What is your opinion?
Eugenia Kothe, Germany
Sounds pretty bad manners to me. I should never comment on the dress of anybody else, apart from congratulations. Only narrow-minded people make a fuss about the dress of others. Let us set them a good example by not being sarcastic about them or their behaviour. Sarcasm is striking while the irony is hot, and is an unkind thing to do to one’s friends, unless they are really good friends, and you do it with style. Let us not be diverted from our sunny enjoyment of life by childish remarks about our clothes.
I run a guest house. Each year we are visited by a couple we met in a hotel in France. Then we happily enjoyed the company of all our fellow guests. The couple now visit us each year, getting a friend to book a room so that they can ‘surprise’ us. The problem is that, away from the distractions of the holiday and other people, this couple are at best self-obsessed bores and at worst downright rude, criticising our house and our hospitality under the guise of jokes.
Lip Moon, Hastings
Blistering blue barnacles. You have been trapped in a Catch-22 of holidays. The people we meet on holiday are seldom going to become soulmates in the sober light of everyday life. All you can do is make yourself extremely busy with running your guest house during their visit. I do not recommend lacing their porridge with laxatives, or making their visit so uncomfortable in other ways that they choose to take their custom elsewhere. Tell yourself, as with other insurmountable vexations of life, that this too will pass.
When entertaining vegetarians at Christmas, is it considered offensive to carve the meat at the table, or seat them next to carnivores?
Kes Lewis, Manchester
Your veggie friends must know that they are being entertained in a turkivorous household. They must have the good manners to fit in with your Christmas customs, without demur or even raised eyebrow. It is not your duty to cater for their sensitivities, other than providing delicious vegetables. Otherwise, why have they accepted your invitation to a traditional Dickensian Christmas meal?
Is it still considered correct and polite to thank the hosts formally after being entertained? We often give dinner parties for four or six people. The evenings seem successful and yet more often than not we do not receive any form of thank you. Are we being old-fashioned to expect such courtesy?
J. S. J., Woking
You are not being stuffy. But your friends are not being rude by the standards of modern chaotic and insouciant manners. Like you, I was brought up always to write a bread-and-butter thank you after being given dinner (or anything else). This does not need to be a Gibbonian essay, just a witty card. The young have not been trained in the protocol of writing thank yous, or indeed writing anything. I am continually surprised at their ability to receive generosity without a thank you. But we must not let our surprise turn into resentment or criticism. Ours is but to cook delicious dinners for our friends, without hope of reward, to give and not to count the cost, and to take pleasure simply in being a generous host. We should set a good example ourselves by always thanking.
We are entertaining a couple at home over the weekend. We also have a mutual friend who is lovely, but very chatty and, after angling for an invitation, has now actually asked if it would be OK to gatecrash the weekend. This person will completely change the dynamic. It is rude to gatecrash, but is it rude to ask to gatecrash? And would we be rude to say no?
Name and address withheld
Yes. Of course it is rude to propose gatecrashing. You must not let yourself be bullied by a pushy friend. She (why do I assume that the intruder is female? Sexist, Philip?) must have the hide of a rhinoceros to try to barge in anyway. Although to be honest I would more likely (wetly) say: ‘Wot the Hell! The more the merrier!’
My wife is an awful cook. We were recently invited to a dinner party by some new neighbours and do not know whether to accept, because they will surely expect their invite to be reciprocated. Advice please.
Andrew, Edinburgh
Yes, you should accept. Why don’t you cook? Everybody should be able to cook a bit. It is a civilised craft. Anybody can learn to cook. It is a skill and a pleasure that we should all acquire. Failing all else, there are shops that will sell ready-made meals that look as though they have been done in your own kitchen. Otherwise, take your generous hosts out to a restaurant for dinner.
My parents and parents-in-law disagree about whether it is appropriate, when hosting a dinner party, to crack open the gin and tonic before guests arrive. What is your view?
Jonathan Halliwell, London E1
Bountiful Bacchus! I should try to postpone cracking open the G and T until the first guests arrive. That is extreme politeness. But it is extreme and delicate. I do not think that your parents would lose many points of etiquette by sucking a gin and tonic while waiting for guests. They can always hide it behind the poinsettia.
How can I make amends for forgetting to go to a dinner party? I simply forgot. It was not deliberate.
J. H. G., Chelsea
By instant and sincere contrition and apology. We do forget things. Well, most of us do. But to forget a dinner party is rude. I should both telephone and write by hand, not e-mail. And send or take round a handsome present of penitence, such as a good bottle of fizz. For heaven’s sake, write dates in your diary, or tie knots in your hanky.
I recently held a dinner party to which some of the guests arrived early while I was still preparing the food and was not suitably attired. I was tempted to go upstairs and change, but I didn’t bother and felt rather underdressed as a result. What should I have done?
L. M., London
It was v bad manners of your guests to arrive before they were invited. If you knew your guests well enough, I should have laughed cheerfully as they arrived prematurely, and said: ‘Here are the drinks, my dears. Please look after yourselves. I am just nipping upstairs to change. Back in a jiffy. Help yourselves. Be my guests. You are.’ But, if I did not know them well, I should have done what you did. It is the duty (and pleasure) of a generous host(ess) to make her guests at ease and happy, even if their bad behaviour by arriving before invited has made her uneasy.
What is the correct form when two friends who have been invited to dinner arrive with a bottle of wine? Should this be offered first; if and when the host’s first bottle is depleted; or kept by the host for enjoyment at a later date?
Tony Fish, Sevenoaks
At posh dinners the host will serve his own wine throughout – we seldom go to such posh dinners. It is an impertinence to arrive with a guest bott for really stately hosts, such as Her Maj or the Duke of Omnium. It could be taken to imply that their cellar is deficient. But the rest of us serve our own wine before the guest wine. The only exception may be if a generous guest arrives with a bottle of chilled fizz, whereas we have only chav cava.
I seethe inwardly when one particular lunch guest insists on throwing open my windows ‘because I’m too warm’ and moves my furniture ‘because it’s a health hazard – someone will fall over it’. Should I stop inviting them? Am I overreacting?
A. Fuss-Pott, E. Sussex
Astounding Aeolus! Keeper of Fresh Air. Your friend is presumptuous and downright impertinent. You have to decide whether the pleasure of his friendship cancels the rudeness of his behaviour. Why do I assume that your pushy friend is male? But I do. I might try to make a sarcastic remark, when he next flings open the windows. But why introduce sarcasm into what is meant to be a cheerful meeting of friends?
I took a considerable amount of time and trouble devising a seating plan for a formal dinner party of about forty friends, many of whom did not know each other. Was I justified in feeling cross when one of my friends rearranged her end of the top table?
Mary Anonymissus, Cambridge
Surprised? Yes. Peeved? Possibly. But cross may be going too far. Your friend showed bad manners in rearranging your seating plan. But you should not allow a minor lapse of etiket to spoil your fun. What a pushy friend! About forty to a formal dinner? I know now that Cambridge is the centre of civility.