Decent Obsessions

What is the etiquette of greeting your boss (of a different gender) in a social situation? Should you shake hands as you might in the office or should you air-kiss and if you air-kiss should it be a single peck on the cheek? Have you ever left a social function thinking am I the only normal person in the world? Do you secretly envy surgeons because they get to scrub right up to their forearms? Do you feel uncomfortable unless the television volume is set to an even number? Because leaving the volume on an odd number let alone on a prime number is just so wrong. Are you surrounded by people who can't keep an appointment, who don t know how to spell or punctuate, and who continually complain about being broke but who still manage to pop over to Bali for a holiday because they've had a rough trot? Do you like saying the names of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Aung San Suu Kyi, and French words like insouciance, for no other reason than they sound nice? Because if any of this resonates or merely fascinates then Bernard Salt's Decent Obsessions is for you. Here is a rollicking some might say slightly obsessive journey through the manners, the mores and the minutiae of modern life.