Mary Killen
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Q. Like F.N. of Stoke Abbott, I have suffered embarrassment when sitting at a table where two people have not turned. Your suggestion that another guest should break the spell by calling for silence and then raising a glass to the host is good — but what if you are the host?
—Name and address withheld
A. There is a very useful all-purpose phrase for defusing social embarrassment — ‘Now what would you like to drink?’ Even if guests have been fully furnished with every type of liquid refreshment they could possibly want, there is no harm in a host touring the table with two bottles in hand and coming up behind each guest to offer more. In this scenario the question would be used as a distraction technique. The two offenders might try to brush the host off by saying ‘I’m fine thanks’ so they can get back to bonding, but they could not stop him from lingering for long enough to effect a break-up.
Q. May I pass on a tip to readers? I left it too late to order antibiotics from my GP surgery before the four-day Easter break and could sense a chest infection developing. What to do? I rushed out and bought a brace of intensively farmed broiler chickens and ate my way through them over two days. There were obviously enough antibiotics within to effect a cure and I sidestepped the need to ring for an emergency prescription.
— G.W., Wilts
A. Perhaps this explains why chicken soup has long been credited as ‘Jewish penicillin’.
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