Recently Tesco replaced their own brand café with a branch of Costa coffee bar. I have observed that several customers adopt the practice of using a spoon to clear the coffee cup of the prodigious amount of foam and chocolate left behind after consuming their cappuccino coffee. Is it correct to use the spoon in such a way to convey the frothy milk chocolate mix to the mouth?

W. Raine, Northallerton

By Apicius, first of the celeb chefs, and Ganymede, coffee-maker to the Gods! Waste not, want not. I see nothing uncouth or improper in using a coffee spoon to scoop up the sludge left by modern celebrity coffee. But this should be done tidily and discreetly, without smacking lips or splashing.

My boyfriend (he is 55, I am 50) turned up four days before Christmas completely empty-handed. Wouldn’t it have been good manners for him to bring a card or flowers at the least? I left it till he was leaving to give him his present in case he suddenly remembered he’d left it in the car. So I was in a dilemma: should I not have given him his? I don’t think he will be the boyfriend for much longer.

Christina, Hopeville

Absolute Aphrodite, Goddess of Love! You did right. Love is an overpowering goddess, not an exercise in reciprocal accountancy. Traditionally women are better than men at presents and anniversaries. Does this arise from atavistic memories of the Stone Age, when men were out hunting and gathering, and the women stayed at home knitting socks? Or is it mere male selfishness? Who are we to say? Forgetting to bring you a Christmas present was feckless, reckless, useless and rude. These are male characteristics. No? But they should not rule him out completely as a boyfriend. You should consult your heart rather than your pride and your purse over such an important matter as a romantic relationship.

It was good to read in Body&Soul that only 4-5 per cent of the population deal with a cold by constantly sniffing. But if there are so few sniffers, why do so many congregate in reference libraries? How should one deal with this problem if moving out of earshot is not an option?

Peter Dunham, the Fitzwilliam

Ear-muffs? I tried those in our open-plan office, which is full of sniffers and yakkers as well as Michael Binyon. Hopeless. People kept on knocking on my scarlet ear-muff, and asking what programme I was listening to. Those of us who work in libraries and other public places must cultivate a carapace of concentration to cut out extraneous sniffing.

Why do you spell etiquette as etiket?

Cyril Lang, Lavenham, Suffolk

Schoolboy humour, sir. Pure schoolboy humour. Etiket is etymologically and semantically incorrect. Ignore such infantile jokes. They are beneath you.

Is it still obligatory for the well-dressed gent to wear a necktie with a suit?

Worried, Ealing

The necktie is dying. Let it die. But we still look undressed in an open-necked shirt under a gent’s three-piecer. Let the tailors and haberdashers put their heads together to devise some garment to cover up the unattractive sight of the older man’s hairy Adam’s apple. Until that happy day arrives, I should carry on flaunting your necktie, in order to avoid flouting the sensibilities of precisians and fusspots.