BACK TO NATURISTS

When walking on a coastal path recently, I was passed by a man — naked except for his rucksack and boots — coming the other way. What is the correct greeting in such circumstances? My “good morning” sounded rather limp.

IT, Milton Keynes

My grandfather claimed to have had a similar experience in the Harz mountains in Germany, when a young lady naturist appeared coming down the narrow path before him. “I didn’t know whether to block her passage or toss myself off,” he said. I never did discover which course of action he pursued, as my grandmother inadvertently dropped the gravy boat she happened to be carrying into his lap. Generally speaking, it is always best to pretend everything is normal, so pleasantries about the weather would suffice, such as “gosh, it must be cold” (avoiding reference to brass monkeys, obviously).

FUN WITH ANIMALS

I have a burning desire to shoot meerkats. Can you advise me where I can do this?

CSF, Corbridge

I can see the attraction. The way they pop up from holes in the desert does give them the appeal of a primitive video game. Their natural habitat is the Kalahari, which is rather far away. However, there are several zoological gardens with meerkat colonies. You should inquire whether you might pot a few, as zoos are suffering from a terrible decline in visitor numbers, and need ways to pull in the crowds. In fact, this idea could be developed much further. There wouldn’t be much sport in big-game hunting, as tiger enclosures don’t have much in the way of hiding places, but imagine the attraction of dropping some enthusiastic young gladiator in there with a trident and net. Televise it and it would easily knock Strictly Come Dancing off the top spot on Saturday nights.

BABY TALK

Every time I meet another mother who I haven’t seen in a while, she will insist on us both showing the other pictures of our kids. Since we all have camera phones now, there’s no excuse for not carrying any. We both then have to navigate our bloody phones through the My Media portal, or whatever it is, and then exclaim: “Oh, he’s so gorgeous, he looks just like you!” When, of course, you know one kid looks very much like another and nobody’s really interested, anyway. How to get out of this tedious baby-off?

SE, London

When other mothers produced images of their drooling offspring, I would whip out a photograph of an orang-utan in a nappy and claim it was Horace at six months. With one or two horrible exceptions, most mothers were far too embarrassed to continue showing off their perfect children, when I had produced such a monster.

TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE

I am 27 and engaged to a beautiful woman of the same age. On our engagement, I met her parents for the first time, and was shocked to recognise her mother as the older woman I was intimate with for a weekend about two years ago, just before I met my fiancée. Rather oddly, I don’t think she has placed me yet. Do I tell either of them? Please reply expeditiously; I am walking up the aisle in December.

TT, Northants

I wouldn’t tell your fiancée, but otherwise, depending on the discretion and appetite of your future mother-in-law, this could be as much an opportunity as a problem: all it takes is careful timetabling (and stamina).

Send problems to: Mrs Mills, The Sunday Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1ST, or mrs.mills@sunday-times.co.uk. No correspondence can be entered into

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