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A. When your friend next visits, casually open a pile of bills in front of her. One of them should be your telephone bill (which you have resealed). Display exasperation as you go through it, exclaiming that it is much higher than usual and there must be some mistake as you have a family agreement not to call premium numbers. All premium numbers are itemised on a telephone bill so immediately call the suspect chief offender number to identify it. ‘Oh!’ you can gasp. ‘It’s an airline booking number. Is that the one you use?’ This should have the desired effect. Your friend will be shamed into curtailing her calls or at least contributing to those she has already run up.
Q. While lying on a friend’s sun-lounger the other day, I noticed that she had installed man-made, prefabricated house martin nests under her eaves. This friend normally has impeccable taste yet these nests have a grey, cement-like appearance and the double version gives the appearance of a concrete bosom. Am I right in thinking that man-made birds’ nests are a lapse in taste, Mary? Wouldn’t a bird box be more attractive and aesthetically acceptable?
S.H., Woodborough, Wiltshire
A. Despite the aesthetic problem, on this occasion prefabricated nests are acceptable. House martins are fussier than other birds. They require bespoke mud dwellings for nesting purposes and would not be attracted to a wooden box. These agile harbingers of summer could make their own nests, of course, but if woodpecker predation is a problem in your garden, then a prefabricated pecker-resistant nest is a practical method of foiling raids. Numbers of house martins are, of course, in decline, partly as a result of ignorant homeowners physically dislodging nests and the lack of traditional projecting eaves for nesting sites in modern housing.
Q. My 17-year-old son went to an 18th birthday party last weekend. As a consequence he was hung-over for one of his important exams. Next year he will be 18 on a Saturday during exam week and wants a party on the day itself. Am I being a killjoy to insist that he has it after the exams? He complains that if I leave it till after exams, his friends will have all gone travelling on their gap years. Yet I feel that if I have it during exam time, other parents will hold me responsible for their children’s bad results.
C.S., London SW12
A. Do not forget about leavers’ balls. Most teenagers do not leave the country in earnest till after that event and will be still hanging around in England. So download A-level timetables and host your son’s party on the day of the last possible exam but before the leavers’ balls.
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