My manifesto for modern manners

Modern manners: what are they? Perhaps you're fraught already? Perhaps you feel yourself starting to seethe: all the rudeness lurking just outside the front door – and sometimes within.

Maybe this morning you waited politely, as you were taught, to let someone out of a shop, but they stalked past without even a glance. Perhaps on the train a business person was booking a hotel in Finland. You heard all about it: a mobile-phone bellower.

Maybe you're not the type to get irate. If you're a nice person, which I'm sure you are, you might just be tinged with anxiety: will Sylvia mind that I haven't replied to her email for 48 hours? What about the Fentons' party invitation? That came two weeks ago. As for the backlog of thankyou letters...

About six years ago, when I first wrote my Guide To Modern Manners – I'm aware you may be wondering 'Who is this Blaikie who thinks he can tell us what to do?' – I discovered that a lot of people were expecting only one thing from it: huff and puff, moan and groan, country's going to the dogs, rudeness stretching to the horizon... Well, I'd be the first to admit that it's great fun to rant. But there are limits.

So much of what we used to think of as correct 'etiquette' was motivated by snobbery and class division. Blue-faced colonels strode the land, finding fault. Certainly at my prep school in the 1960s, Matron pontificated at lunch: which way up on the plate should the fork be left and at what o'clock?

Of course, it is still important to know how to hold a knife and fork properly. Nobody wants to sit next to a man eating peas off a spoon. But the essence of modern manners is not being judgmental and rigid. It is more about being a good neighbour than being wrapped up in rules. It's about being someone who is considerate and pleasant to be around.

Of course, having no rules is all very well, but in the end nothing is more terrifying than the host who says, 'Come when you feel like it, wear what you like. Relax.' We all want some direction.

People care about the polite way to behave, even young people, far more than might appear. Many of us wonder when we shoul

So my new Modern Manners column will hopefully answer these dilemmas. It will be for people who care. Who worry about doing the right thing. But don't want to appear stiff and formal. In return, I hope to offer answers that are rational and tolerant, but also flexible enough to keep up with the rapid pace of change in the modern world.d take a bottle to a friend's. Whether it's OK to say thank you by email, or bring a friend to a party.

From next week, Thomas will be answering YOUR questions about modern manners. Contact him at thomas.blaikie@lady.co.uk or write to Thomas Blaikie, The Lady, 39-40 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ER.

 

 

 

WHAT TO DO ABOUT... Mobile phones

Mobile phone use is the number one modern manners flashpoint. It isn't just strangers on buses and trains shouting into their devices. Now we've got internet-friendly phones, so it's even more complicated: should people check things on Google while seated at the table? Or make notes on these mini computers?

•  Some people don't just take calls when they are out with friends, or at parties, they make them too, and text in the intervals at the theatre. It is awful and you might have to drop hints or give frosty looks.
•  A new survey from SecurEnvoy finds that 66 per cent of us are 'nomophobes', wracked by fear of being separated from our mobiles. And so they must be indulged, just a little. What if the house has burnt down, or there is trouble with the children?
•  If you must use your phone, do it out of sight of everyone else, and certainly not at the table. At weddings and 'important' social occasions this must be the absolute rule. At a small gathering, if you know an unavoidable, important call is coming, you could warn the others in advance and, when your phone rings, swiftly retreat, offering apologies.