What attitude should I take to escargots at the dinner table?

Peter Foster, Newcastle upon Tyne

The Deipnosophist approaches the dinner snail with relish and a big napkin. He needs to like garlic. Who doesn’t? He needs fresh rolls of bread and a tub of good salted butter for mopping. Pick up the delicate gastropod with the snail clamp. Excavate the snail with the little fork. Enjoy. Tilt the shell down your snail-hole to drain the last of the juice.

I sometimes give quite large drinks parties where caterers provide champagne and canapés at a charge of quite a few pounds a head. I issue formal written invitations which clearly end “RSVP”. There are always some who don’t reply. I sometimes telephone near the time to check whether they got the invitation and whether they can come. Not infrequently I get the response: “I don’t know what we’re doing that weekend”, which being interpreted is: “We’ll wait and see if anything better crops up”. How can I indicate politely that in that case I would prefer to take it as a “no”?

A. Anonymissus, Winchester

Well, you could explain gently that you need to know numbers for the caterers. But there are always going to be some Dithering Dorothys and Desmonds who refuse to make up their minds, I dare say for the mean motives that you suggest. But let us be generous. Some of them really may not know at this stage whether they can come. Can they get a babysitter? Will their flu have gone? Let us recognise that some will never make up their minds until the day (jolly rude). And take the generous count or numbers, and resign to living on old canapés and champagne for the rest of the week after the party. Bottoms up!

Is it my imagination, but do more households not have locks on their lavatory doors? This is okay within the family, but may prove embarrassing to many visitors. Is the solution to keep whistling or cough on hearing an approach.

Robert Kibblewhite, Witney

By Augeas of Elis, king of the lavatory attendants, I do not know how one would establish the stat that fewer households are putting locks on their lav doors. But thank you for your useful suggestion of whistling or coughing. You could also block the unlockable door with a foot or a book.

How should one deal with an otherwise good female friend who talks endlessly about her (adult) children, in mind-numbing detail? I have adult children of my own, but I find this habit intensely irritating. Am I being unreasonable?

Mrs Irritated, Godalming

No. Perhaps a little irritable. You could retaliate with endless anecdotes about your own children. But that would merely make two philoprogenitive maternal bores instead of one. We have to put up with the tiresome habits of our good friends, in the hope that they will put up with ours. Try to have on hand a stock of interesting anecdotes and observations about the wide, wide world to interpose when you are given a window of interjection.

Is it polite to pick up asparagus stems with one’s fingers to eat them?

Ann Martin, Bexhill

Perfectly OK at most tables. But problematic at Buck House, because it can be messy, with Hollandaise sauce splashed on one’s tie and cuffs. Also, if the asparagus is hot, you will burn your fingers. You are not obliged to eat the entire stem. You cannot eat artichoke leaves without using your fingers. Maybe this is why Her Maj never serves them.