THE OSTENTATIOUS TABLE

It all feels so... American, as pronounced by a brilliantly acerbic UK correspondent. People are architecting their table settings not for laughter and silliness, discussion and edification, flirting and connection, friendship and memory-making, but for photos. It isn’t bad enough that we must endure a second by second montage of “fascinating” adventures people do on a daily basis, but now we are constantly being subjected to endless photos of their tabletops perfectly primped and preened, and exactly the same as your other friends table photo last weekend.

If the most interesting and beautiful thing about the dinner party is the setting, then we are afraid to say, it is just like going on a diet to lose weight. Diets will fail you every time and so too will a pretty table if it doesn’t allow you and your guests to talk.

Firstly, curb enthusiasm on flowers. Used on tables often with uncompromising aggression, effectively building an impenetrable Berlin Wall down the middle of the table, they could be accused of keeping your guests out of the party rather than welcoming them in. Bud vases are certainly having their moment currently, but their function and form is indisputable.

Next, renounce too many candles. As in, the amount that make mascara run down faces or set hair on fire. As in, candles of all different heights and widths that positively threaten people in their sheer numbers. And for those scented kinds - it is better to fetter these, especially in spring. Telfast anyone?

(Incidentally, chill with the personalised napkins and objets – very bourgeois.)

It is entirely your choice: a good photograph and everyone in bed by midnight? Or people having inclusive conversations, forging new friendships, thinking about working together and howling with laughter.

And just to be clear, crying from giggles and making memories is our choice always.