Orange is not the only juice for abstainers at Christmas And for those entertaining, please, please include some decent non-alcoholic drinks. This requirement is still often overlooked. Nobody can drink orange juice all evening - it's a breakfast drink, anyway. You need thirst-quenching non-alcoholic drinks: elderflower spritzer, lemonade, Coca-Cola and a variety of flavoured waters. Pippa Middleton's very pleasing book Celebrate is apt on that point. It's a very nice book, by the way, and probably extremely helpful to people who seek to be informed about basic aspects of entertaining. For anyone who is anxious about giving, say, a Burns night party, the instructions are here. Pippa doesn't deserve the pasting she has had from female commentators. Susan Jeffers, who died last month, wrote a hugely successful self-help book, whose title only needs to be perused to comprehend the message. Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway sold millions and spawned a cult following. Dr Jeffers (she had a PhD, in psychology) is terrific at reassurance. She instructs her followers to repeat to themselves "you'll handle it," whatever misfortunes befall them in life. If you make a mistake, don't fret - move on and correct. It doesn't matter how often you have to correct the decisions you make: in the American style, she insists that failure is just a preparation for success. I find all this most uplifting. It's when she approaches personal relationships that her message becomes rather alarming. So you married the wrong person? It doesn't matter - walk away. So your closest relationship has broken up? It doesn't matter - there'll be another one along shortly. The important thing, she argues, is to start anew. This is "pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start all over again" carried to extremes, even by the standards of American Pollyannadom. Surely perseverance, commitment, sticking with a relationship, even imperfect, is rewarding too? "Moving on" isn't everything. In parts of London, up to a quarter of households now contain no one who speaks English as their main language. And it is women who are most disadvantaged. I have visited households in other parts of England where Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are virtually confined to the house because they speak no English and the men handle everything practical on their behalf. Social services should vastly reduce most of the translation services they provide and insist that immigrant women negotiate health services, childcare services and community contact in English. That really would be a message of empowerment.