A snob's guide: What to buy your dinner party host

First up, we don’t call them hosting gifts. It is a useful catch-all term here for the uninitiated, but ‘thank you present’ will suffice in most cases, whether you’re referring to a present for someone having you to stay for the weekend, for a dinner party, for a week’s holiday in their Provençal villa and so on.

Secondly, always take something. Always. It can be a jar of jam, or a box of eggs. It doesn’t have to be extravagant if it’s just dinner. Some people believe it’s rude to bring wine to a dinner party because the implication is the host’s wine won’t be any good. Frankly, I’m always delighted with wine because it’s probably better than mine. If you’re coming to my house, I’ll be over-the-moon with a cheap bottle of pinot noir and a box of Maltesers. Preferably cheap chocolate over anything posh. Doesn’t everybody prefer a bar of Cadbury’s? If you’re dead chic and it’s a smart dinner party, you send a bouquet of flowers the day before the party, so the host doesn’t have to rush about finding a vase when you arrive on the night, and they help the house look lovely. That takes a heroic level of organisation, though. I’d still be happy with the Maltesers.

If you’re going to stay with someone for the weekend, you can probably try a bit harder. Some people grumble about getting another smelly candle or a bottle of bath oil, but have you ever received one of those and felt disappointed? I haven’t. You’re jolly spoiled if you have. A book makes a more thoughtful present, but only if you’ve read it and you know it’s good, or suspect it to be something that your host will like rather than any old book plucked from the shelf of the nearest supermarket. Plus, one (or preferably two) bottles if you’re a drinker. If you and they have hordes of children, what about a game they might all like to play together? An outside game, ideally. That giant bubble wand?

Talking of games, if you’re going to stay in someone’s house abroad, I don’t reckon you can do much better than packing Ex Libris as a present, an excellent after-dinner literary game that people seem to have rarely come across. Once you’ve returned, unless you’ve fallen out or done something controversial like sleeping with their husband and you’re never going to see one another again, that’s the moment to send something more generous — a case of wine, say, or an album or collage of photos from the holiday if you’re an arts-and-crafts sort.