A new drinks-party-shirking method has taken hold in British society. I call it ‘Lastminute.non’.

Previously, the way of not going to someone’s party was to write a polite message of refusal at least a week in advance, giving the host or hostess ample time to absorb the sad but inevitable fact that various friends would not be able to attend – usually for copper-bottomed reasons, such as that they had other plans for the evening or would be away on holiday.

Most popular

Owen Matthews

The scandal that could bring down Volodymyr Zelensky

Charlie Walsham

Inside the BBC’s impartiality meltdown

Rod Liddle

How to fix the BBC

The new trend seems to be to accept an invitation, and then, mere hours before, to duck out of it. This means that from breakfast time onwards throughout the day of

See Full Page