What’s your problem?

Inherited too much money? Offended by abuse of the English language? Housemate pinched your secondfavourite Rolex? Never fear: guest agony uncle Jonathan Self is here to help

It’s off to work you go

I am 40 years old, live in a rural area and recently inherited a substantial sum. I have given up work and spend my time pottering about the house, reading, listening to the radio and taking naps. Life would be perfect were it not for my housekeeper, who disapproves of my new lifestyle and is forever making sarcastic comments—not only to me, but also to visiting friends. I can’t fire her as staff are impossible to find in this area and she’s related to all likely replacements. How can I tell her that it’s none of her business? I’m starting to think I may have to get a job, just to keep her quiet. M. H., Norfolk

Don’t weaken. There is a Yiddish proverb: ‘The hardest work is to go idle.’ I suggest that you take, as it were, a page from Victor Hugo’s book. He said: ‘One is not idle, because one is absorbed in thought. There is visible labour and there is invisible labour.’ Tell your housekeeper that you are now engaged in an intellectual pursuit. Mathematics would be a good option. Leave books around with titles such as Concepts of Modern Mathematics and Euler’s Pioneering Equation and buy yourself one of those fancy graphing calculators. Alternatively, announce that you are now reviewing books using a nom de plume for COUNTRY LIFE. I only wish I was faced with the same problem, but, unless a grateful reader changes their will, I have no more inheritances, substantial or otherwise, coming my way.

Irritable vowel syndrome

My sister-in-law is a warm, kind woman, but constantly misuses words. Recently, she was decimated not to see me at a friend’s wedding and explained that her husband (my brother) was incontinent when it came to making decisions. She splits infinitives and hangs participles as if there were no tomorrow. How my brother puts up with it is a mystery, as his wife would say, wrapped in a stigma. To correct or not to correct?

N. E.-P., Gloucestershire

What you have, my friend, is a case of irritable vowel syndrome. The second I saw your hyphenated name, I realised we had been to school together. You always were prissy and I see that age has not improved you. Let me remind you of our school motto: ‘Manners makyth man’. It would be the height of rudeness to correct your warm, kind sister-in-law. Suck it up and, if you must do something, jot what the grammatical expert Eric Partridge would have called her ‘abusages’ into a little notebook. The process of writing something down always helps, I find. Finally, I must tell you my favourite grammatical joke. The past, present and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

A Porsche of one’s own

My housemate doesn’t seem to understand the difference between meum and tuum. It began with his borrowing, without asking, my Turnbull & Asser James Bond shirt. Then, it was my second-favourite Rolex. Finally, I came home to find he had taken a spin in my Porsche 911 (Turbo S, this year’s model). How do I make him stop?

F. D. R., Kent

I’m torn between believing that the only reason for your letter is to show off how rich you are and thinking that, if this is how you choose to spend your money, you have it coming. However, having taken the agonyuncle oath, I am bound to give a helpful answer. You clearly have more money than is good for you—move out and get a place of your own.

There were six in the bed

Finally, I think I have found ‘the one’. We met on a weekend course for people with body-confidence issues and share common interests including English folk dancing and dogs. We are discussing moving in together, but the only fly in the ointment is that she insists her four German shepherds, which are fiercely protective, must sleep in the bed, whereas my two miniature schnauzers are crate-trained. Leaving aside the effect this is having on our love life, it is a struggle to accommodate all the canine and human bodies. What should I do? R. D. J. K., North Yorkshire

Being an agony uncle isn’t all private jets and petits cadeaux (hint, hint) courtesy of grateful clients, you know. There are times when a reader’s happiness hangs in the balance and the pressure is on. I feel your best bet would be a minor deception. Move in together and, when your partner is out, change the bed for one that is slightly smaller. If she remarks on it, say you can’t see any difference. A few weeks later, do the same thing again—and so forth until you are all sleeping in a single bed. She will soon see the impossibility of two people and multiple dogs getting any peace (or the other thing) while bunked in together. If she catches you, laugh it off as a practical joke.

Suits you, sir

I have 14 bespoke suits, seven blazers, 43 formal shirts with French cuffs, 74 silk ties and nine pairs of handmade brogues. Now that I work from home, when on earth will I ever wear them again?

B. B., Lancashire

The newspapers are full of advice on how one can mix it up: formal blazers with tracksuit bottoms, evening wear with t-shirts and runners. According to these so-called sartorialists, anything goes. Be like the deaf adder and stoppeth your ear. You possess a wardrobe full of beautiful clothes— enjoy them. Wear them when home alone. Wear them for cursed Zoom meetings. Wear them to the shops. I am willing to bet that formal clothes will soon be back and the Dark Age of Loungewear behind us. The only alternative to decent raiment is nudity and, as Mark Twain (a snappy dresser, if ever there was one), remarked: ‘Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.’

Hair today, gone tomorrow

My husband, who always had glorious locks, recently came back from the barber’s looking as though he was enlisting in the army. He thinks it makes him look younger. I hate it. How can I convince him to grow it back? D. T., West Sussex

Contact an Inspector Dalgleish at Titty Hill Police Station and remind him of the £100 I transferred to him (you can send me a cheque at your leisure). He has agreed to arrest your husband during his regular Friday night tiddlywinks game, on suspicion of being an escaped criminal. He will make great play about your husband looking just like someone who has recently been detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure (although one doubts she gets much pleasure from it at all). That should do the trick.