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A. Why not take a tip from Lady Bamford’s eco-spa at Daylesford just down the road from you? The spa, housed in an old farm building behind the fashionable shop, was transformed by architect Spencer Fung to a strict ecological brief. He too was instructed by fire officers to coat the beams of the old building, a former hay barn, with fire- retardant paint, but instead he managed to find an environmentally friendly fire protection coating from Envirograf which has a range of products for various woods in different coating finishes for the fire rating required. Telephone 01304 842555, www.envirograf.com.
Q. As a human resources manager of an international finance house I am writing to ask for your advice on a very sensitive issue. I have been approached by our chairman’s PA on the subject of her boss’s halitosis. His offensive breath has not gone unnoticed by clients and employees alike and has now become something of a joke. Clearly, in my capacity as HR director, this is something that I need to address. Please advise how I can delicately tell our chairman that his clients and employees find his bad breath offensive. Oh yes, and I do want to keep my job!
Name withheld, London
A. Please visit www.therabreath.com, the website of Dr Harold Katz, director of the California Breath Clinics and author of the depressingly entitled Bad Breath Bible, in which he details the multifarious causes of bad breath and exculpates most sufferers, explaining that it is usually nothing to do with bad hygiene. By clicking the ‘know someone with bad breath’ option on the website, you may take advantage of a unique service offered by Dr Katz. Without disclosing the identity of his informant, he will tip off a sufferer by email that they are indeed suffering from bad breath, and will invite them to look for further information on his own website towards solving the problem. One of my aides has experimented, giving my own name as a suitable recipient of one of these ‘perfumed pen’ emails. I can attest that it arrived instantaneously and was couched in the most kind and informative terms. Obviously this service is open to abuse from ill-wishers who may order emails to be sent to people with alpine-fresh breath in an attempt to undermine them. Nevertheless, since the genuine problem is so widespread, I feel confident that it is correct to supply my readers with details of this service. Incidentally, the ‘Bible’ is advertised on the website as free of charge to anyone who applies before 3 May 2006.
If you have a problem, write to Dear Mary, c/o The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL.
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