The cause of much social anxiety, table manners are all too often associated with an arcane list of duties and proscriptions. Many anxious diners have been brought to the verge of nervous collapse when faced with a daunting array of cutlery and tableware, a host of waiting staff, and a bewildering selection of glasses.
If you ever find yourself in this situation, console yourself with the fact that only a deeply sadistic host would actually take pleasure from your embarrassment, and remind yourself that an over-punctilious insistence on the niceties of table performance is probably a sign of entrenched snobbery or social discomfort.
That is not to say, however, that table manners do not matter. There are certain basic codes of conduct that matter very much indeed. At the bare minimum, you should eat with your mouth closed, never talk with your mouth full, help other diners to food before serving yourself, ask for food to be passed across to you (rather than reaching across the table), and sit up squarely to the table, with your elbows tucked in. If you adhere to these simple rules, your manners will never cause revulsion or distaste, and – better still – you will not bring attention to yourself.
If you are in a formal situation, and you feel more is being asked of you, observe your fellow diners closely and copy what they do. Work the cutlery from the outside in, and bear in mind that the bigger, rounder wine glasses are for red, and the taller, thinner ones are for white. Put your napkin on your lap, don’t tuck it in your shirt.
Avoid using your fingers – though it’s fine to pick up asparagus (without a sauce) and the only way to peel off the leaves of a globe artichoke. Fingers can also be used for fruit, such as grapes and oranges. Pips and stones should be discreetly spat into a cupped left hand and deposited on the site of the plate. That’s really good enough.
If your concentration lapses, and you find yourself eating the meat with a fish knife and fork, drinking mineral water from the wine glass, slurping water from the finger bowl, just carry on. With any luck no one will notice, and if they do, your fellow diners may actually admire your insouciance.
Mistakes of this sort are only serious if you let your embarrassment get the better of you… On the other hand, eating with your mouth open and grabbing food from under other people’s noses is genuinely offensive.
The pandemic lockdowns are in the past but the impact they had on our working practices is still reverberating, and we are continuing to make adjustments to our working life.
At the height of the Covid crisis, working from home was seen as the universal panacea – a safe way of ensuring that we were productive but not at risk from office-borne infections. For many of us, working from home was a revelation; it was a liberating chance to restructure our working lives around our family commitments and many people found the self-containment of the home office surprisingly conducive to concentration.
Not everybody reacted positively to this move into the domestic sphere. Some people felt lost, disorientated and distracted. They missed the everyday pleasantries of office life and longed to return to the workplace.
Not surprisingly, there are pros and cons to both:
• You are able to work flexibly and, if your employer agrees, you can structure your working day around your family or other commitments – for example, working early in the morning or in the evening.
• Providing you have a dedicated workplace at home, where you can shut yourself off from the household, you will be free from outside distractions and should be able to work more productively.
• In many offices a great deal of time is wasted by employees getting together for unnecessary and protracted meetings, which can easily wander away from the subject in hand to gossip or unrelated issues. If you are restricted to Zoom meetings, they tend to be shorter and more focussed.
• You will not be spending hours every week to travelling to and from work, and you therefore will not have to fund your – increasingly expensive – commute. Even if you do have to attend the occasional meeting you will be able to organise it in off-peak hours and will not be penalised with higher peak hours fares.
• Your house is full of distractions. You may become diverted by domestic chores, the garden, or the fridge – if you feel like procrastinating or are gearing yourself up to make a difficult call, it is all too easy to wander into the kitchen for a quick snack or cup or coffee.
• You are unobserved by colleagues. If you are prone to spending hours messaging your friends or online shopping, you may find this habit gets out of hand in the privacy of your home office.
• Your absence from the office may mean that you miss out on opportunities or information that you will only pick up accidentally when you are there in person. You may also find that out of sight is out of mind; if you are not physically present, your managers may overlook you or turn to in-house employees.
• You will be missing out on routine chats over the coffee machine or the water cooler. These day-to-day pleasantries are not only a pleasant distraction, they are a simple and effective way of bonding with your colleagues and feeling part of a team.
For some employers, the deserted office is an affront. They feel that oversight of their employees is impaired and that efficiency is suffering. They also feel that the lack of in-person meetings is leading to communication breakdowns and damaging teamwork and collaborative work. Some are beginning to insist on a full return to the office.
Other employers have radically restructured their operations post-pandemic. They have accepted the working from home model and have been able to reduce overheads by moving to much smaller offices.
Bearing all the pros and cons in mind, many people are now opting for a third way – hybrid working. They will go into the office one or two days a week, which gives them a chance to re-bond with their colleagues and have in-person meetings. They will spend the rest of the week working from home. For many people this is the perfect compromise, providing sufficient social contact and stimulation, but ensuring that they also have the flexibility and independence of working from home.
British people have always felt that an outright negative is rather bald and impolite. There is a tendency, therefore, to bedeck a negative with evasions and circumlocutions. If, for example, you ask someone “do you like the meal?”, you can be sure that a reply along the lines of “it’s certainly very interesting” is a resounding negative.
If you ask someone if they want to do something/go somewhere and they reply, irritatingly, with “we’ll see”, this probably means that they want to do nothing of the sort.
This tendency to obfuscate the negative often comes with the best of (polite) intentions – a desire to please everybody, to accentuate the positive, to oil the wheels of social intercourse and ensure that interactions are seamless and agreeable. However, being perennially incapable of saying “no” can also lead to confusion and frustration. If someone hedges around their response to a social invitation with prevarications and uncertainty it is very hard to establish whether they are actually going to attend. It would be much better for anyone initiating or hosting an event to know where he or she stands, with no ambiguity.
Try and perfect the art of refusing politely and unambiguously. If you can’t make it to an event, just say (or text or write) something along the lines of: “Thank you so much for inviting me to xxxxx. I’m so sorry, but I won’t be able to come – I do hope you all have a great time.” If you recoil at the starkness of this statement, you can always add an excuse or a reason (overwork, other commitments, holiday, family obligations etc). The main point is that everyone knows where they stand. If it’s possible, you can always suggest an alternative, which will end the transaction on a positive note.
If you are asked to a social event or date in person, you may find your natural British tendency is to default to the “we’ll see” formula. This is maddeningly vague. Instead, try and school yourself in the art of the straightforward negative, British-style. This is always prefaced with an apology: ‘I’m afraid”, “I’m sorry but”, “Unfortunately”, along the lines of “I’m afraid I can’t come to dinner on Tuesday.” If you are not a person who customarily refuses, then your negative will be satisfyingly decisive.
However harsh you may find these simple negatives, remind yourself that you will be heading off a lot of trouble down the line. Simply saying no is obviously preferable to accepting everything and then cancelling 99 per cent of your commitments. Your inability to say no may well be a symptom of FOMO, and the firm belief that a serial refusenik will fall off most people’s social radar. But you are much more likely to be decisively dropped if you repeatedly let people down. You will get the reputation for being flaky and people will stop asking you.
The ability to say no unambiguously obviously extends well beyond the social sphere. If someone asks you to do them a favour, an evasive answer is no substitute for a straightforward refusal (“I’m afraid that won’t be possible”). You can mitigate the blow by suggesting an alternative option (“I’m sorry, I won’t be able to help you move house next week, but I can give you the number of an excellent removal company.”)
Be careful you don’t fall into the trap of being an affirmative, appeasing person who agrees to everything, and then proceeds to let people down and leave them in the lurch.
After the difficulties of the last two years, we might still be a bit rusty when it comes to hosting meals in a restaurant, dining in a big group, or dealing with complaints or special dietary requirements.
Get the most out of the restaurant dining experience by following these simple rules:
Whenever possible, make a reservation – always book if you are dining in a group, and discuss any special requirements, such as seating with step-free access, with the restaurant in advance.
It is also a good idea to alert the restaurant in advance if guests have allergies or dietary restrictions. You might need to check, for example, if they offer gluten free or vegan options, and it is helpful to give them forewarning so they can make advance provision.
If you are unhappy with the table you are allocated, ask whether it is possible to be accommodated elsewhere, but do this before you sit down to minimise disturbance for adjacent diners.
If the waiter assists a woman in taking her seat, she should accept this old-fashioned chivalry graciously, and wait until the chair is touching the back of her knees before beginning to sit down.
Restaurants should now offer tap, as well as bottled, water, and it is always acceptable to ask for tap water.
If you are hosting (ie paying) in a restaurant, then it is up to you to choose the wine. If you are dining in a large group, where the costs of the meal are to be shared, it helps if somebody takes control of ordering the wine, which means enlisting a consensus choice from the assembled company. If you are the designated wine selector, consult with your fellow diners over the choice of wine. Don’t make assumptions about how much they are willing to pay – the easiest option in these circumstances is often to go for the house wine, so it might be sensible to steer your companions in this direction.
When dining in a group, you should try to agree collectively on the number of courses. Once you have chosen, close your menu. If you know that someone else will be picking up the bill, choose modestly. If you are footing the bill, you should suggest to your guests that they have free rein.
If you are dining in a group where everyone is paying, try and ensure that diners are ordering the same number of courses and comparably priced dishes. It helps if one person takes charge and makes this explicit at the beginning of the meal.
Normally, everyone at the table is served at the same time. Wait until all dishes have arrived at the table before starting. If yours is lagging behind, insist the others start, and wait a few minutes before quietly enquiring as to where yours is.
If you are dissatisfied with the food, say so discreetly and with minimal fuss, and request any necessary (and reasonable) changes. Keep things pleasant, and don’t shoot the messenger. Be aware that excessive complaining may spoil your companions’ evening. Never revert to sulking or playing the martyr if you’re dissatisfied – that way you’ll make everyone uncomfortable. If you are merely disappointed with your meal, keep it to yourself – you don’t want to strike a sour note.
There is one abiding rule – the person who requests the pleasure, pays for the pleasure. So, as a simple point of etiquette, you should pick up the tab for a lunch, dinner or drinks – whether dating or business lunching – if you have invited the other people.
Going Dutch is not recommended on a date. Instead, the person who issued the invitation should pick up the tab.
Splitting the bill is fine for bigger restaurant gatherings. Costs should be divided equally; niggling about the comparative cost of dishes and drinks will be embarrassing and look cheap. It is to be hoped that the preliminary discussions around the ordering process will ensure that most people’s orders are comparable. If there are gross inequities, for example one person ordering the lobster while everyone else is happy with fish and chips, then it behoves the extravagant diner to make a gracious gesture, such as paying for the tip.
In the UK, tipping in restaurants is usually ‘discretionary’, but it is more discretionary in some places than others so check your bill. ‘Service not included’ means just that, and it is usual to offer between 10–15 per cent.
Since most transactions these days are by card, the tip is usually added as part of the card transaction. Leaving cash is still the method favoured by restaurant staff – but don’t just offload a pile of small coins, it looks contemptuous.
Many establishments will add a discretionary percentage automatically. You are not obliged to pay this if service has been noticeably poor, and in some circumstances it is acceptable to ask for it to be removed.
The immediate childish reaction to most criticism is to reject it. Even if the criticism is totally unjustified, however, and your indignation is entirely understandable, you should not lose your temper. If you wish to set out to prove that you are being wrongly appraised, then you will need a cool head and calm nerves. An intemperate reaction will do little to establish you in the eyes of others as the sort of reliable, conscientious person who would never put a foot wrong.
If the criticism is justified, then you have to accept it with as good grace as possible. Actual mistakes are easily identified and must be acknowledged. More pernicious criticisms, regarding your personality, trustworthiness, and working demeanour, are harder to accept because they involve subjective judgements, which are more potent if they are representative of more general opinion within your organisation. If this kind of criticism is backed up with corroboration and agreement from a wider circle you will need to concede that there is a problem.
The more responsibility we take on, the more senior our position, the more we are in the public eye, the more we are scrutinised and assessed. If we hold positions of power we are accountable to those over whom we hold authority, and we must accept this surveillance.
Once a colleague or someone in authority has pointed out what you are doing wrong, then the next step is largely up to you. The first priority is to offer a genuine apology for your shortcomings, which means explicitly acknowledging your mistakes, taking full responsibility for them (no pleading of mitigating circumstances or blaming others), and expressing genuine regret.
If you can’t remedy the situation without the help of others, then you must ask for that help. Surrounding yourself with a supportive and competent team may well offer a positive solution. If the solution lies entirely in your own hands, then you should acknowledge your full responsibility and take the necessary steps, which may involve rectifying mistakes or evolving new ways of working.
If the situation has deteriorated to the point where there is no obvious remedy or solution, it is time to step back and assess the part you have played in this decline and your own culpability. At this point, if you are feeling beleaguered and exposed, it is quite possible that you will adopt a defiant stance and double down. But this defensive behaviour will only prolong the agony. What is needed is a clear-eyed appraisal of the possible consequences of your obstinacy, and if you are incapable of seeing it yourself, now is the time to listen to objective advice from trusted colleagues and friends.
You may have reached the point of no return, where you have to admit defeat and adopt an exit strategy, by resigning your post and relinquishing your position. This is clearly a difficult moment; you will be confronted by a tsunami of criticism and you will have to handle an array of negative emotions – embarrassment, humiliation, anger, regret.
The important thing is not to allow these emotions to cloud your judgement, and to move past them. By understanding your limits and acknowledging you have made mistakes and reached the end of the road, you are accepting full responsibility for your actions. Your recognition of your own shortcomings will go a long way to silencing the chorus of disapproval and ultimately you will be able to move on to pastures new.
Workplaces can become completely dysfunctional if team members are not working harmoniously together, or if staff lose confidence in their boss. Bullying, harassment, non-cooperation, lack of communication and undermining behaviour are all aspects of organisational discord, which can quickly turn poisonous. At this point staff members may well launch formal complaints against individuals, or the management.
It is always a good idea to have a known and established machinery for dealing with complaints in any organisation (a person to whom the complaint should be made, a committee that sits to hear complaints, an accepted practice of bringing both sides to the complaint together, etc).
Whether there are established protocols within the organisation or not, certain basic principles apply in dealing with any complaint:
Most internal complaints within an organisation fall into one of two categories: performance and attitude. Performance complaints relate to not doing the job properly, passing work unfairly on to others, blaming others for personal failings etc. Behavioural complaints relate to how a person is treating his or her colleagues – showing too little respect, taking people for granted, being rude.
A complaint about a colleague should be made to the right person and in the right way. Unless there are good reasons not to, it is best to let the culprit know that you are going to make a formal complaint: and why. It gives the culprit a chance to make an eleventh-hour improvement or at least to offer some kind of apology and make a promise to do better in future. If, however, there is no improvement and the promise turns out to be an empty one, then the culprit cannot say that he or she hasn’t had a fair warning.
Once you have said that you are going to make the complaint, you should go through with it. Although it’s very understandable that you should make a complaint when you are angry, you should try to do so coherently and with all signs that your patience has finally been exhausted and you have been forced to take this reluctant action.
It is important to remember to make the complaint reasonably, to avoid getting into a slanging match, to be specific as to what you are complaining about and to adopt a generous (or at least reasonable) attitude to any proposed solution to the problem.
Obviously, if you know of other colleagues who have been similarly upset or annoyed by the culprit, it is a good idea to ask them if they, too, would like to make a formal complaint. Take care that you don’t appear to be trying to stir up antagonism towards the culprit where none exists. This is a matter for careful thinking and considerable tact. In general, however, a complaint made by several people is treated more seriously than that made by a single individual. It is a good idea to make a note of any similar grievances that others expressed towards the culprit. This makes it much harder for those others to withdraw their support at the last moment.
There will be occasions when the complaints within an organisation concern the person or the management team that is in charge, and it is therefore imperative that there are procedures and protocols in place to deal with that scenario. There should always be a third party committee, with supervisory oversight, which can mediate and adjudicate in this situation. Nobody, however senior, is unaccountable, and ensuring that senior management is regulated and held to account will protect the integrity of the organisation.
It’s a sad day for everyone concerned when someone has to be sacked, or made redundant, but that doesn’t mean that all pretence of good manners should go by the board. A person who is being ‘let go’ is entitled to decent treatment. News of dismissal should be communicated by whoever is responsible, in private, face-to-face with the person being concerned. Certain points may be helpful:
Leaving a job, especially unwillingly, can be one of the most traumatic things that can happen to anyone. Depriving that person of the chance to say goodbye to colleagues and work is as unkind as it is ill mannered. Such practices also breed fear in the rest of the workforce, and fear is never a good motivator.
Previous generations drew a firm line between the public and private spheres. It was understood that, when you were out in society, you were under close scrutiny. Lapses in taste or judgement, a lack of decorum, or transgressions of any kind were noted and commented upon by your contemporaries and your reputation was damaged, sometimes irreparably. Private life was considered sacrosanct, a safe haven where discretion was assured.
In the age of social media and internet surveillance these divisions have become blurred. We post publicly about our most intimate affairs, open ourselves up to 24/7 scrutiny, avidly consume an online diet of scandal, scurrilous lies and defamation that spreads, unchecked and frequently unmoderated, around the world in seconds.
But we must not let ourselves forget that discretion is a great virtue. We all do, say or think things that are not for public consumption and we need to draw the line somewhere. We need to accept that we have a public persona, which is how we project ourselves when we are out in the world (real or digital). People will judge our public persona and will use it to determine whether we are honest, reliable or employable. We reserve our private persona, with all our insecurities, lapses of judgment and indiscretions, for our friends and family, and it is a mark of respect and trust to do so.
It is a well-known fact that employers, marketers, intelligence agencies and, increasingly, criminals, are mining data about our online lives, tracking our browsing histories, spending patterns and most private communications. No aspect of our online presence is immune from scrutiny. It is therefore imperative, if we want to protect ourselves from fraud, defamation or reputational damage, that we carefully curate our public persona for public consumption.
So, in an increasingly public world, how do we protect our own privacy and respect other people’s?
1. If you want to post online, share trivial and mundane, rather than sensitive, information. Don’t over-share; although it can be tempting to solicit praise and validation from your online audience, you are trusting them with information that may well come back to haunt you – the online world is a place where revelations can be seriously misinterpreted and discourse can easily turn uninhibited and malign. Restrict your more intimate disclosures to real world communications with close and trusted friends.
2. Control your audience. You wouldn’t blurt out your deepest secrets to a roomful of strangers in the real world, so don’t do it on the internet. Use privacy settings, monitor your followers, don’t tag people on Facebook.
3. Consume online information intelligently. That means recognising that a great deal of content that finds its way to the internet is unverified, unchecked and untested. It might be riveting, but it is little more than unfounded rumour and gossip. You will need to dig deeper to test the veracity of much of what you read online.
4. Think carefully before you disseminate questionable information and be aware that it may well contribute to a dangerous online rumour mill that will do innocent individuals real reputational harm. Bear in mind that seeking redress for lies and calumnies that are spread on the internet is a difficult, and often ineffective, process and the damage that is wrought may well be permanent.
The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations are looming this weekend and the entire country is en fête. Our streets are bedecked with bunting, street parties are planned and the supermarkets are overflowing with Jubilee-themed treats.
But what do you do if the prospect leaves you cold? While millions of us will be embracing the celebrations with enthusiasm, millions will feel daunted, disgruntled or excluded by the proceedings. We have to accept that not everyone is an enthusiast, who eagerly embraces high days and holidays, dons fancy dress costumes at the drop of a hat, enjoys nothing more than festooning the house with themed decorations and cooking celebratory dishes.
People who do not enjoy joining in these exuberant celebrations are often dismissed as ‘party poopers’, sour-faced non-participants who lurk on the periphery at festivities, spoiling the day for the rest of us. But this characterisation is obviously unfair. We all have different ways of socialising and celebrating, and some of us are self-contained introverts, who find mass partying intimidating and depressing.
There should be room for everybody to behave on these occasions as they choose; it just takes good manners and a spirit of tolerance and acceptance:
• It’s quite possible that you will find yourself surrounded by people who love events like the Jubilee. If that is the case, and you feel your non-participation would really hurt the feelings of people you care about, then you must accept that you need to make a conscious effort for their sake, and join in the celebrations with good grace.
• If you do find yourself unwillingly participating, then you will have to be very careful to moderate your behaviour. Don’t spend the day in a quiet corner, looking at your mobile phone or your watch. Make a conscious effort to eat heartily, chat convivially, participate in the party games and thank your hosts effusively. It might feel like a strain, but you will be able to congratulate yourself on the fact that you have not let people down.
• If you feel that toeing the line is beyond you, act decisively and don’t attend – a non-show is far preferable to putting in a moody and dispiriting appearance. Politely decline the invitation, and if it at all possible, explain the reason why. If you actually admit that you’re not comfortable at parties, that you find them a great strain, or that you find organised public events overwhelming, then you are taking the burden of your non-appearance on yourself, and your host will not feel hurt or rejected. This is the polite thing to do.
• If you are an enthusiastic party-goer or host and you’re confronted with an unwilling participant, accept their stance graciously – remember an unwillingness to wear a hat, wave a flag, knock up a dish of coronation chicken and join in a sack race, does not indicate that a person has a questionable character. It just demonstrates that this is not their thing and everybody is different.
• Don’t force conviviality on refuseniks. If you’re aware that somebody is making a big effort to attend a party, remember that they may find the more gregarious antics daunting. Allow them to navigate the celebrations on their own terms, and don’t turn into a manic cheerleader, who’s always propelling them into the social fray. If they want some time out, or they’re enjoying a quiet one-to-one conversation, leave them be. Part of being a good host is embracing the idiosyncrasies and foibles of all your guests.
• If a refusenik turns down your invitation, with or without an explanation, accept it. Don’t hector or harangue them, just acknowledge that not everybody is as sociable as you are, and don’t take it personally. If you concede that some people are simply happier having a quiet drink with a couple of friends, you will be able to enjoy your own celebrations, free from any anxiety that other people are missing out.
There are few countries in the world that have embraced the concept of the music festival as readily as the British. Come sun, wind, or rain and mud, thousands of people across the land can be found spending their summer weekends under canvas by night and in front of stacks of speakers by day.
The reason for such behaviour? Simply the extraordinary choice of music festivals on offer across the UK. There are the big guns, drawing music’s most famous names, such as Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds and the Isle of Wight and the more bijou gatherings such as Bestival, Latitude and Secret Garden. All of which means there is something for everyone – whether a jazz lover, rock ‘n’ roller or devotee of Polynesian nose flute music.
Maybe it’s a curious quirk of the British spirit that such a quantity and diversity of events exist in a country whose weather is so ill-suited to staging them. But perhaps it’s for that very reason that music festivals in the British Isles have an atmosphere of fun, spontaneity and excitement unrivalled anywhere else.
Each festival has its own unique flavour and feel, but the universal expectation is that the punters are faced with a few days and nights in a field, though this can range from glamping in a well-appointed yurt to toughing it out in a flimsy portable tent.
Whatever the expectations, the best festival-goers are those who can maintain a carefree, sunny spirit, no matter how deep the mud. But spontaneity, when confronted by crowds, queues and adverse weather, is greatly aided by strategic planning. It helps to be well organised:
• Plan ahead and if you are going in a group make sure that each party-member has an allocated list of contributions (eg water supplies, drink, folding chairs, gazebo). It helps if one person is appointed the group organiser, and they can coordinate everyone else.
• A trolley or wheelbarrow will be invaluable when it comes to transporting kit from the carpark to the campsite. Many festivals hire out trolleys, but these can be expensive and elusive.
• Choose where to pitch your tent with care. Avoid sites at the bottom of hills (rainwater run-off and mudslides can be a real hazard) or near communal taps, where there will be heavy foot traffic. Make sure you’re not on the main route to the festival arena and avoid sites downwind of the loos at all costs.
• Use picnic rugs, folding chairs or even a lightweight gazebo to create a communal space outside the tent /s – an ideal relaxing spot for weary festival-goers who are satiated with the music and severely sleep-deprived after several days camping.
• Navigating your way back to the tent late at night, when all you’ve got is a torch and your own befuddled recollections, can be a nightmare. Take a short cut by fixing a flag or pennant to the top of your tent so you can recognise amongst it the hundreds of others, which all look disturbingly similar.
• Don’t leave valuables in your tent. Make sure you’ve got plenty of cash as well as cards as you never know what the policy of bars, food stalls and refreshment facilities will be.
• Your mobile will be invaluable: it will help you round up lost members of your party, organise meeting points, liaise over dinner choices. It will also double up as a torch and camera. Most festivals offer phone charging facilities (at a price).
• Take plenty of water. It’s useful for teeth-cleaning and washing, and it’s also vital to keep well-hydrated. You will be able to refill large containers at communal taps.
• Festivals are notorious for wet weather challenges but they can also be hot and sunny and if you are outdoors all day you will be very exposed – pack a hat and plenty of sun cream and apply it regularly. Always be ready to share your sun cream with less organised festival-goers.
• Everyone is at a festival for a fun time and you’ll need to get into the party atmosphere. But if you find yourself in a particularly quiet section of the campsite, late-night antics and loud, boozy conversation won’t go down too well with your sleeping neighbours. Assess the prevailing atmosphere and act considerately.
• Clear up after yourself and be meticulous about using all the recycling facilities that are provided. You should leave your camping site pristine, with no trace of your occupancy.
• Be open to strangers, share your stuff, help out if they’re lost or disorientated. You will find that all the usual social barriers disappear at music festivals, which creates a uniquely friendly and convivial atmosphere.
The diamond is sparkling on your finger and the date is set. You're about – unless you’re very careful – to undergo the transition from ordinary woman to bridal fury. Be afraid. In the flurry of champagne moments and warm-hearted celebrations that follow the announcement of an engagement, it’s all too easy to become convinced of your own importance. You may become strident in defence of your right to have a perfect wedding, and ruthless in your treatment of anyone who (according to you) stands in your way.
Take a step back and breathe deeply. A wedding is a team effort, requiring vast reserves of tact and diplomacy. Parents must be placated, in-laws must feel included, friends must be consulted, and – above all – your future spouse must feel that it is their big day too.
Here are some ways to avoid becoming a bridezilla:
• Remember that your upcoming wedding is not a unique and monolithic event on the social calendar. Other people will be getting on with their lives and will have plenty of crises and celebrations of their own to contend with.
• Conduct a reality check. You may have dreamt of your perfect wedding day for many years, but fantasies are not always fulfilled and everyday constraints – like budget, family relationships, availability of venues – will inevitably intervene.
• Remember it takes two to get married. Your own dreams and agenda will now have to be shared and negotiated with your future spouse, which may well be a tough test of your relationship. Grandiose plans may be shattered when you are confronted by an obstinate desire for an understated wedding.
• Listen to your family (and give your future in-laws equal attention). Weddings tend to be family events, and you may find your dream guest-list is curtailed by family considerations and complex relationship dynamics. While you should not allow yourself to be railroaded by family priorities, you must also consider them very carefully and, if expedient, make concessions.
• Listen to your friends. You may well have already enlisted your best friends as bridesmaids and they will do their utmost to support you on the big day. But if they are good friends, they will notice when you are becoming obsessive or over-demanding, and they will gently put you back on the right track. Accept that they are objective observers and take note of what they say.
• Always negotiate, never demand. Planning a wedding certainly requires organisational abilities, but more importantly it requires excellent social skills. To carry off the big day successfully, you must be prepared to be flexible and accommodating. Never dig your heels in or adopt a non-compromising stance – every problem and challenge can be solved through constructive negotiation.
• Remember your ps and qs. Asking for help and favours and making your own wishes known will all be much more palatable if you remember to say please and thank you. It is a gracious gesture to send the odd note (or even text message) of thanks, for example to your mother-in-law and chief bridesmaid, during the run-up to the wedding, and ensure that their contributions are publicly, and gratefully, acknowledged.
The big day will soon pass, and above all you will want to enjoy memories of a joyous celebration, not niggling recollections of your own intractable behaviour.
