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MEDDLING

SOMETIMES my husband might jokily demand that I ‘get my sticky beak out of his affairs’.

I may, for example, be hovering over his computer, suggesting how he should word a delicate email. Or, he may be about to make a social arrangement without consulting the calendar — or better still, me.

Type ‘meddling’ into a search engine and lots will appear about Putin and Trump, speculating that the Russian bear intervened in the American election. But, in that context, is ‘meddling’ a robust enough term?

Enid Blyton’s Mr Meddle was a well-meaning but interfering pixie, introduced in 1940, not to thwart the German Blitzkrieg; just to, you know, cause a local muddle.

Jane Austen’s Emma Woodhouse is a terrible meddler, but she is an intelligent woman stuck in the countryside and probably, as recently claimed of former UK prime minister David Cameron, ‘bored s***less’. Recent fiction also has some fine female meddling. Dear Mrs Bird, by AJ Pearce, breathily recounts the Blitz adventures of Emmeline Lake.

Hoping it will bring her closer to her dream job of ‘Lady War Correspondent’, Emmy applies for a secretarial role at the London Evening Chronicle, only to be billeted on the Agony Aunt of The Women’s Friend.

Her battleaxe boss Mrs Bird forbids ‘unpleasantness’ on her pages, such as marital difficulties, sex, religion, politics or even the war. Emmy, however, feels some letter writers deserve a reply.

Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty’s latest novel, Nine Perfect Strangers, is a hoot. Tranquillum House is an Australian spa whose Russian owner Masha is known for her singular approach to wellbeing. However, she takes her individualised treatments a little too far.

In Jessie Burton’s bestselling The Miniaturist, we never really know whether the tiny figurines sent to the Amsterdam merchant’s wife Nella presage or reflect disastrous events. There are certainly, however, meddlesome powers at large.

Note to self: neither a meddler nor a muddler be.