Now I’m not sure what happens where you reside but in London it’s still deemed polite to pick up a bottle of wine when you’re invited to dinner at someone’s house. Two if you’re a fast drinker. But there’s a certain moment when to do so becomes unwise and makes you look, well, cheap. I sadly remember the first time that I made this faux pas.

I had been invited to the home of a work contact. It was a crossover moment, an invitation that hinted that perhaps we could become actual friends. On the way to dinner, I purchased a bottle of champagne (very fancy pants, I know). Her address turned out to be a grand London house and, when I pressed the bell, a butler answered the door. I immediately saw a wince of anguish spread across his face as he glanced down and eyed my off-licence carrier bag. “Sir, may I take your coat – and your, er, shopping?” he intoned in a voice that made it very clear that my booze would be going no further than the hallway. And it didn’t.

Of course, thirtysomethings today probably don’t host dinner parties or, if they do, only imbibe kombucha for fear of missing out on a personal best at Barry’s in the morning. But I still carry the scars.

This week I was invited to dinner in Mallorca at the kind of epic house that’s named after the family who lives there (sadly I don’t think you could ever have the “Tuck House” as it would sound like I was running a roadside diner). Was this a moment, I wondered, to arrive empty-handed or bottled-up? In short, might the host be too grand for gifts? 

I messaged my friend Olaf – for whom the dinner was being thrown – and he assured me that a bottle would be an acceptable offering (though I did pop a copy of Monocle into the nice tote bag too just to improve my chances of success). I am pleased to say that the hostess was the epitome of barefoot chic. She left me feeling as though I was generosity personified. I don’t mind if the wine ends up in a sauce – and I didn’t get butler rash.

We were talking about dinner parties at work this week and I told what I thought was a good story about a mid-week dinner at a friend’s flat, where someone arrived with Anjelica Huston in tow. The amusing part was that my friend, the host, charmingly had no clue who she was and thought that she was just a late-addition plus-one. Except the story sank like a miserable soufflé when I realised that my desk neighbour – a man who was barely out of diapers when this happened (ie, he was very young, not blighted by terrible adult incontinence) – had a bit of butler face going on. “Sorry, I haven’t a clue who you’re talking about,” he admitted. I scanned the rest of my audience and saw much googling in action. I really need to update my stories.

Another etiquette issue: how to respond when someone posts tragic news on Instagram. Now I like my feed to be filled with pictures of architecture and reels of puppies being rescued from rivers but, occasionally, I do spot posts announcing the sad death of a parent or that someone has been diagnosed with a disfiguring tropical disease. I always find myself drawn to the reactions that these posts inspire. Firstly, the number of people who just press “like”. Is that really a suitable response to the news that your friend’s family has been kidnapped in the Amazon? Then this week, under a post about the death of someone’s dad, I saw that someone had simply put a poop emoji. No doubt there’s some stonemason influencer making emoji headstones as I type. But who are these people and do they know who Anjelica Huston is?

If you really want to know how to be a good host – or guest – get yourself a copy of Konfekt: A Guide to Generous Hosting. It has all the answers.

To read more of Andrew’s columns, click here.

Danish clothier NN07 and Italian bootmaker Fracap have been in lockstep for years (writes Jack Simpson). In their third collaboration, the brands reimagine Fracap’s iconic M127 silhouette with three new boots that, for the most part, reflect NN07’s penchant for pared-back aesthetics.

Two of the designs, which come in traditional brown and black leathers, are quite at home on a steep alpine edge, pounding inner-city pavements or mucking out the stables in the country. The third pair – though it wouldn’t struggle with these tasks – might make you forever conscious of scuffing your prized, dark-grey ponyhair shoes. The choice is yours. 
nn07.com; fracap.it

Further reading:
Four Tokyo shoe brands to add to your wardrobe

This month’s highlights include the third part of a South Korean epic and a Tom Cruise disaster film.

Read
‘American Hagwon’, Min Jin Lee
The third instalment in Min Jin Lee’s Korean-diaspora quartet follows the Koh family across South Korea, Australia and the US. Tracing decades of migration, financial upheaval and sacrifice, at its heart is a moving reflection on family, ambition and duty set against the pressure of South Korea’s hagwon private-tutoring system. 
‘American Hagwon’ is published on 29 September.

Watch
‘Digger’, Alejandro González Iñárritu 
Oscar-winning director and unabashed maximalist Alejandro González Iñárritu returns to English-language filmmaking with his biggest star and biggest stakes yet. Tom Cruise’s Digger Rockwell is a boorish oil billionaire who has carelessly kick-started the apocalypse with his plundering of Earth, unencumbered by morality or any intervention from the dictatorial US president (John Goodman). With only himself to blame, it’s down to Digger to wrangle with both geopolitics and Mother Nature to ensure the survival of both humanity and his beloved cat.
‘Digger’ is released on 2 October.

Listen
‘Happiness Anytime’, Leon Bridges 
US singer-songwriter Leon Bridges worked with J Lloyd-Watson and Lydia Kitto from UK band Jungle on his fifth studio album. The results are bright, bold and full of cosmic beats and easy-listening rhythms. Highlights include the pop-funk of “Light the Way” and the suave “All Day, All Night”.
‘Happiness Anytime’ is out now.

Want the full rundown of the month’s top cultural happenings? Click here to read more.

British brand Margaret Howell is opening a string of new outposts in South Korea (writes Rory Jones). Starting with a shop in Seoul’s Shinsegae Main Department Store, which opened this week, the brand is planning two further locations before year’s end. Its long-anticipated move into the Korean market proves the success of its retail formula, as attested by a series of well-received openings in France, Italy and Japan.

The clothes – known for soft, generous silhouettes made with quality fabrics – have seemed predestined to find themselves on the backs of Seoulites. To coincide with the launch, South Korean publication, Magazine B, will be releasing an issue dedicated to the UK label – a print equivalent to an open-armed welcome.

Further reading:
Style top 25: Monocle's pick of the season’s best pieces and the brands to keep on your radar

Australian group The Avalanches occupy a rarefied position in the pantheon of pop music. Now consisting of Tony di Blasi, Robbie Chater and Andy Szekeres, they rarely write hit singles and don't get entangled in celebrity spats or affairs with fellow musicians. But they do make monumental albums full of uncanny melodies and surreal diversions that are almost universally admired.

Their debut album, Since I Left You (2000), was a dizzying cocktail of nagging earworms and the inspection of strange emotional territory, realised by bringing together more than 3,000 samples from commercials, old songs and found sounds. The record sold 600,000 copies and turned The Avalanches into unlikely stars. And then came the “difficult second album”. Wildflower took 16 years to arrive but mapped new terrain and featured singers, not just samples. It was beautiful.

Their follow-up, We Will Always Love You, was released in 2020 and now the self-described “sampologists” (“Oh, God, sorry about that,” they say) are back with a fourth album. No Bad Memories links “real” music with the jingles and sound designs associated with the technology of the past 40 years: CD players, mobile (but not smart) phones, floppy-disc drives, modems, the shimmering noise of a just-switched-on Canon digital camera. The Avalanches hear tenderness in these sounds, made by machines that still carry our memories, somewhere in a drawer in our house, lifeless. But the new album – on which the group enlisted the talents of Jamie XX, Karen O and Portraits of Tracy, among others – is full of life. Oh, and there are some samples too. The Avalanches write and record as a trio but Di Blasi and Chater are the founding, touring and talking heads.