The chimenea season has arrived. How do we cope with a friendly neighbour who insists on using his chimenea not only at weekends, but also during the weekday evenings? The smoke is intolerable. We are forced to retreat into our sun lounge, closing doors and windows. We give hints by coughing, but it goes unnoticed.

Hack Coffin, Bridport

Chimenea? Cripes, Bridport is trendy. This is a friendly neighbour. Have him over for a drink, and explain that he is smoking you out. Do so amiably and self-deprecatingly, not crossly. Good fences make good neighbours. And so do good barbecues.

Is it necessary good manners to thank for a dinner or a weekend by writing?

Anthea Wright, Plymouth

It is necessarily good manners to thank for hospitality. It is also socially prudent, if you want to keep your friends. In these high-tech days, many young do not possess the tools or the training to write letters. So let them thank by phone, e-mail, txt msg, or even by the primitive method of face to face. Let us thank for hospitality. It is a natural humane instinct.

Most business letters are now written by a female clerk with no indication of Miss or Mrs. I have seen some replies addressed in the letter as “Dear Susan Smith” which is rather twee. I personally abhor the prevalent “Ms”. Have you a better suggestion?

John Bradley, Norwich

It is good manners to address people as they choose to be addressed. Ms is a rare example of a word created for political reasons. Invented in the early 1950s, it was used before a woman’s name in business correspondence in America when the marital status of the addressee was unknown. It was enthusiastically taken up by feminists in the 1970s, and was first greeted with derision and hostility by the rest of the community. The heat has gone out of the controversy, and Ms is now widely used.

A friend of ours has signed an agreement on a fully furnished rental property. He is considering putting his own furniture into storage. He has two matching sofas, which are in very good condition. He bought them new for £1,200 in the sale, actually worth £1,500. My wife and I are looking for new sofas. What is a reasonable amount to offer here?

Kevin Tipper, Ilkley

I should say to your friend: “We would like to buy your sofas, Dear Boy. What do you reckon would be a fair price?” You are right to avoid mercenary haggling.

Is it within our social norms for a family friend of ours, a gentlemen in his late sixties, to wear a dark blue velvet jacket with a white shirt and a tie all year round, except during the hot summer days?

Sam Banik, London

Holy Hermes, Saucy God of the Jeans. My fashion editrice assures me that everything we wear makes a statement — in my case that I put my clothes on during the Blitz. The necktie is becoming obsolescent in London (though not in darkest Ayrshire), even with gents’ suits. I have to say that its absence sticks out like a sore thumb. Let Savile Row or Hong Kong devise a substitute, please, to cover the male Adam’s apple. Your friend dresses to please himself, and probably sees himself as the Beau Brummel of our times. Let us not mock the clothes of others, in case they return the compliment.