Dear Mr. Smith (I didn’t catch your first name),

I am writing to thank you most sincerely for your wonderful hospitality the other evening. I had a delightful time.  The food was terrific and the ambience delightful.  I particularly enjoyed the wine and have made a note not to try and get some locally.

But it is the conversation I will remember.  I marvelled at your tour d’horizon of American foreign policy, your views on Manchuria and Bulgaria, your penetrating analysis of the election in Idaho,  and your detailed survey of the decline of sales of dinner napkins in rural Arkansas.

But what I shall mostly recall is the fact that at the end of the evening you had not addressed a single personal word to me .  You are none the wiser about who I am, what I think, or what hang-ups I have about being thrown out of my perambulator at age 9 months.  Nor did you ask me about my current employment (for the record, drawing silly pictures of hippopotamuses), where I live, or what my name is (touche) .

A famous wag recently exclaimed, after being remonstrated with for not asking a single question about his guest at a dinner party, “Well, if you wanted to say something about yourself then I guess you would have said it.”

Quite.   I arrived anonymous and left anonymous.  And now we have to reciprocate your delightful hospitality.