Meet Ms Manners

You might assume that in today's society, manners matter less than they once did. Put your elbows on the table at a friend's dinner party and no one will bat an eyelid. But it seems that, in some professional and social circles at least, there's a renewed interest in learning the Right and Wrong ways of behaving in company.

Alexandra Messervy runs a firm called The English Manner, offering classes in etiquette and the social graces. And over the past 12 months, she says, her business has more than doubled, with demand being strongest in the City, where the death of dress-down Fridays and a return to interviewing prospective employees over a formal lunch (a practice not seen since the Sixties) are signs that the laid-back days of the dot.com boom are well and truly over.

Elsewhere, how-to television programmes such as The Dinner Party Inspectors are also encouraging a new eagerness to learn social skills that many of the TV-dinner generation have never had a chance to master.

In a bid to discover just what it takes to acquire The English Manner, Alexandra has agreed to be my personal coach for an evening of mingling with the cream of London society. We are to attend a dinner and cabaret hosted by Johnny Kidd (father of Jodie and Jemma), to launch his annual arts festival at Holders, the family estate in Barbados.

As we deposit our coats in the cloakroom of the Four Seasons Hotel in Park Lane, Alexandra tells me quietly but firmly that I should leave a tip for the attendant when we collect them. I make a mental note. I'm not sure whether Alexandra, who worked for the Royal Household for five years, quite knows what she is up against. The only person I ever tip is my hairdresser, which is really more of a bribe to avoid receiving a dodgy cut next time.Through my tights, which I have just yanked on in the toilets - along with my Dorothy Perkins party dress - you can still see the imprint on my legs of the ankle socks I have been wearing all day. I have repaired the straps of my black evening shoes, which broke off the last time I fell over in them, with a hammer and a brass picture nail.

As we prepare to enter an elegant room in which cocktails are being served, Alexandra advises me to keep my head up. She needn't have worried. My head is already focused on the waiters bearing trays of vodka martinis. I take one, hoping that Alexandra will be impressed by my "thank you", but she wants a word. "You should hold the glass like this," she says, her fingers firmly around the stem. "It's like a glass of champagne or white wine, you never want to hold one by the bowl because your hand is going to warm up the glass."

"Little finger cocked?" I suggest.

"Oh, No! NO!" says Alexandra. "It's just not done. It's like having a finger hanging out of a teacup. You want to have a firm grip. People might think they're being posh doing that, but they're not."

A waitress comes over with a tray of guava-cheese cubes on sticks, and Alexandra outlines the etiquette of canapé- eating. One bite or two? "If it's just that little bit bigger, it has to be two," she says. And don't beckon the waiter over for seconds.

"You have to wait," states Alexandra, firmly. "A good canapé waiter is going to circulate well and come around with them."

We progress to the rum punches. The swizzle stick is spearing me in the cheek every time I drink. Alexandra says that it's perfectly acceptable to take it out and put it in an ashtray. Maria, the hotel PR, approaches. I now have my fourth canapé in one hand and a drink in the other, so am unable to shake hands. The correct thing to do, Alexandra says afterwards, would have been to put the canapé into my mouth "as quickly and neatly as possible", and then offer a hand. A handshake should always be firm and eye contact maintained throughout. "Your hand should never be limp and floppy. It gives the impression that you're not terribly interested. You must remember that the first four seconds of meeting someone is what creates that lasting impression," says Alexandra.

A short, grey-haired gentleman suddenly beetles over saying that he wants to talk to "three such lovely ladies". Maria and Alexandra indulge him politely. But what do you do if you're approached by someone you don't want to talk to?

"In this situation," Alexandra whispers, "we could now extricate ourselves because someone else has come to talk to him. If that was impossible and you were still trying to get away, I think it's perfectly acceptable to say, 'Do excuse me, there's somebody over there whom I haven't seen for ages', or, 'My wife/husband is over there', and then off you go to say hello to them."

And if they aren't over there?

"You can lie. Or you can say, 'I've been monopolising you for five minutes, we must circulate. Lovely to meet you, see you later', and just propel yourself away. Did you notice that he was holding his cigarette straight at me? He should have been holding it down because the smoke was going straight into my face."

At this stage, I'd like another rum punch. "As long as you don't get legless," Alexandra warns. "Never, never get drunk, because you're out of control. It's the worst thing you can possibly do from a self-esteem point of view, because you don't know what you might end up doing."

Chris Eubank hoves into view. Would it be acceptable to go to talk to him? "If you really want to, you can go up and introduce yourself, saying: 'Hello, Mr Eubank, I'm Julia Stuart, I'm delighted to meet you.' That's the only way to do it. But it's not a terribly polite thing to do. I wouldn't advocate it from the point of view of manners. You have to remember that he doesn't necessarily want everyone going up to him. The whole point of manners is treating other people as you want to be treated yourself."

A small crowd has now gathered around the former boxer. "You'd better do it now if you're going to, but I'm not having any part of it," Alexandra says. I sidle up to him and introduce myself with such fanfare that Eubank obviously thinks that he should know me or my partner. "I'm very pleased to meet you, too. Who's your husband?" he asks, slightly bewildered. I confess that I haven't got one. He looks as though he's about to say, "I've been monopolising you for five minutes, we must circulate. Lovely to meet you, see you later", so I scoot off. Alexandra is impressed. She is not so taken, however, with the fact that Eubank is wearing his bowler hat indoors.

We move into the ballroom for dinner. There is an assortment of Barbados-themed goodies at each place setting. My coach advises me to leave them on the table until the end of the evening. "They might be a good talking-point, because you've got to devote your first course to the person on your left, and the main course to the person on your right. Then, at pudding, you can talk to both," says Alexandra, who, during her time with the Royal Household, planned the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of York.

Someone has started smoking at the table next to us. Alexandra shakes her head disapprovingly. "If you have got to smoke, smoke between courses, but you shouldn't smoke during. It's very inconsiderate to your fellow-diners," she says.

My guide issues a ban on going to the lavatory, too. "You're not allowed to get up at all," says Alexandra. "You should go before you sit down. Always. If you absolutely have to go, then you go between courses, and if there are speeches, you must ensure that you're back in your seat before they start. You have to have a bladder like a camel, or go beforehand."

The starter of smoked salmon and lobster dumpling is polished off without a hitch. However, when the rack of lamb arrives, Alexandra issues a stark warning: "Don't pick up the bones." And if there's too much to eat? "You can always leave it. What you can't do is refuse it."

Hypothetically, of course, what should one do if one's main course is threatening to repeat on one? "If you really must burp," says Alexandra, "you can hold your napkin up, or you can turn away, or you can try to suppress it. The easiest way is probably the napkin because you can pretend to be dabbing some sauce from your lips. And always dab, don't wipe."

The cabaret starts and someone's mobile phone goes off. Alexandra rolls her eyes. The table next to us chat throughout the performances. I give them a Paddington Bear hard stare, which, surprisingly, gets Alexandra's seal of approval. "It might be the only way to get them to realise what they're doing. But be aware that, in this day and age, they may shoot you with a gun. You have to be ready to take something back."

Pudding arrives, which would be impossible to eat without bursting buttons. "You have to be seen to have made an effort," prompts Alexandra. "Just fiddle with it for a few minutes, and then leave it."

When the entertainment is over, we get up to leave. "They were really awful," she says of the table that talked all the way through the entertainment. "Money doesn't necessarily mean manners. In the old days, people who had money and breeding would attend this sort of thing. Now, lots of people can afford a ticket, but that doesn't mean they have the manners to carry it off."

How, I ask tentatively, has her pupil fared? "You've done exceedingly well, go to the top of the class. You were brilliant, you have basic know-how," she says.

But you never know with Alexandra. She's probably just being polite.