Dear Alice,

I have a terrible problem with my desk-partner ...

J in Devon

Dear J in Devon,
Oh, get a life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yours, seriously annoyed,
Alice

Dear Alice,
I am a singer ...

Dear Keith,
Not remotely interested. Am completely fed-up with singers!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yours, thoroughly p*ssed-off,
Alice

Dear Music & Vision,

I don't understand what's happened to Alice. Normally the soul of sympathy, wit and understanding, she has recently ...

[Note from Keith: I'm sorry to say that Alice is currently so excessively irritable due to her New Year's Resolution to lose a stone (or 14 pounds) ASAP that she is unable to fulfill her duties as agony aunt this week. In her place we have the 19 stone heavyweight Agony Aunt Hilda (known to her friends as Hildegard), so let's start again ...]

Dear Alice,

I have a terrible problem with my desk-partner, who persists in hoping that I will fall for him, despite the fact that I have shown absolutely no interest at all!

HELP!!!!
J in Devon

Dear J (writes Agony Aunt Hilda),

I feel for you in your deep distress, and wish you to understand that I know HOW HARD all this is, for someone of your gentleness and kind disposition. Might I venture to suggest that it might be no bad idea to write a five-page letter to your would-be swain, giving him to understand that (while you feel for him deeply) yours are not twin souls which have been together, spiritually, since the Dawn of Time, and thus he should seek elsewhere for a suitable mate?

Yours, very deeply involved in all your traumas, believe Me,
Hilda

Dear Alice,

I am a singer, who has a lot of trouble with dealing with accents. I've noticed that I get the operatic jobs I audition for -- but only as long as I stick to Purcell, Britten, etc, eschewing Verdi and Wagner in Italian, French, German etc. Should I give up and sell my soul to Phantom of the Opera?

G P

Dear G P,

Believe me, I feel for you in your agony, and wish you to understand that I am deeply sympathetic. I used to sing myself, in fact, before being forcibly removed from my church choir by the combined forces of sopranos and tenors ... I'm sure that you are imagining your 'troubles' with foreign languages. Just keep on trying, with the upper lip well tightened in the true British fashion, and I feel sure that You Will Triumph!!!!!

Yours, very deeply interested,
Hilda