I arrange to meet William Hanson for lunch at Claridge’s, and I’m irritated at how anxious I feel when I arrive. Hanson is an etiquette expert. He has three million followers on Instagram and two million on TikTok, where he posts short instructional videos demonstrating how to correctly consume a croissant (tear it with your fingers, don’t butter it, don’t dunk it in your coffee), respond to a party guest’s overly personal question (smilingly tell them it’s something you’d love to talk about when you “know them a bit better”) or simply how to eat peas (spear them on the prongs of your fork using the back of your knife, employing mashed potato, if necessary, to provide additional adhesion).
He is the owner of an etiquette training business and has travelled the world coaching everyone from Gulf state royals to lecture halls full of wealthy Chinese women in correct modes of behaviour. He will film his clients eating and then force them to watch it back. He is a man who knows all the proper – and almost infinite improper — ways of doing things.
His reputation is such that he was once called upon, at very short notice, to help serve a formal lunch to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. I take a seat in the luxury Mayfair hotel’s gilded lobby and jiggle my knee and crack my knuckles as I wait for him to arrive..
