I am a hearty eater. I tend to finish my food long before my companions at the table. Any advice please?

Harry Groser, Northampton

By Hercules, King of the Gobblers, at least you recognise the problem. Try ordering the food that you least like at the restaurant. Practise fiddling with the last peas and mashed potato on your plate. Take a lively interest in the opinions and chatter of your companions. My parents, embarrassed by what they perceived as the greed of their children at parties, filled us up with buns before we arrived. Puritanical? But, if pusher comes to shovel, follow Epicurus rather than Zeno, the Stoic: “We say that pleasure is the starting-point and the end of living blissfully. For we recognise pleasure as a good which is primary and innate.”

Why do many beer-belly men wear trousers with a 32-inch waist?

A. W. Jenkins, York

Á la recherche de la jeunesse perdue?

Is it terribly rude to turn down a wedding invitation? And should one lie? It’s not that I don’t wish my friends well, but I’m a mature student and am very poor, very shabby and currently single. I’m sure the happy couple would prefer to invite someone who would enjoy the event more, but I don’t want to cause offence.

Caroline Greig, Norwich

Well, it is no good turning up at a wedding determined that one is not going to enjoy oneself. One should want to celebrate the wedding of one’s friends, even if one considers it a triumph of hope over experience. I should dig out my best, least shabby kit, buy the most imaginative, funny present I could afford, and turn up intending to be happy for them on their big day. A wedding is for those getting married, not their guests. But if we cannot manage that, we should invent a plausible excuse for refusing the invitation, indicating that we are really sad to miss their wedding and are still friends.

We trained a Himalayan giant blackberry on our garage wall and it produces superb fruit every year. Recently a neighbour employed a decorator to paint a garage on the other side of this party wall. On the day the owner was absent, the decorator climbed over the wall and then pruned away a third of the blackberry while in full bloom in order to paint the barge board on the side of the garage. No warning was given nor was permission sought. The prunings were left on the ground on our side of the wall. What should we have done about this trespass?

Justin Annoyed, Shrewsbury

In the first instance, inform your neighbour. Force yourself to make a joke about it, through gritted teeth. If he is a good neighbour, he will apologise and make such restitution as is possible. How can one replace superb Himalayan giant blackberries? I guess that one could write a stroppy letter to the decorator, asking for compensation, or employ a solicitor to write one for you. But I would be extremely reluctant to bring the lawyers into this, on the ground that they bring nothing but escalation and expense.

I have been given a bow-tie for evening wear in my old school colours. I seem to remember that you disapprove. Please advise.

Charles Bentley, Marylebone

Disapprove? Moi? Surely not. The conventional bow-tie for evening wear is black. To wear any other colours says: “Look at me. I am different from you. Bow, bow, you lower-middle classes.” It is just about OK to wear colours in your bow tie if everybody else is doing so.