SEX is no longer a taboo subject at the dinner table, according to the latest survey on dining etiquette.
Dinner party guests now talk openly about divorce, sex and politics rather than shying away from the subjects as they would have done half a century ago.
Jersey Royal potatoes and Times columnist Philip Howard have compiled a list of the top 10 changes in table manners and dining etiquette in the 50 years since the Queen's coronation.
Marked changes include dress, sex and the use of knives.
Where food used to be cut into small pieces and delicately lifted to the mouth, the popularity of pasta and similar dishes has led to a more American way of eating purely with a fork.
In the 1950s the Queen's contemporaries dressed for dinner and weaved their way politely through mundane conversation, avoiding at all costs sex, religion or politics for fear of social exclusion.
Modern diners, however, talk openly and loudly about divorce, sex and politics, knowing that social exclusion for them would come from being thought of as a dull dinner guest.
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