Truss hero's charm fails to captivate Bookworm

Last night's book, to which I'd been looking forward, was With One Lousy Free Packet Of Seed by Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

I noticed that while the pb I was about to read was published in 2004 by Profile, the book's first appearance was as a 1994 Penguin. The hero is described on the back of the pb thus - "Osborne Lonsdale, forty-eight, a down-at-heel journalist mysteriously attractive to women, writes a regular celebrity interview for Come Into the Garden."

Sounded just my cup of tea. Alas, by the end of page 10, Osborne's charm had failed to work on me. I then did a random dip. Chapter 10 opens with Osborne exclaiming, "Oh my good giddy bugger uncle," after he drew "the thick heavy curtains to Angela's bedroom at eight o'clock and saw the devastation" [of a garden shed]. Can you imagine being attracted to a man who uses that sort of exclamation?

Then I had a look at the end. Worse than the opening and middle. In fairness, I must add that an Amazon reviewer called "thepublicist" took a different view. "This early Truss work is simply hilarious. Lynne Truss' off-beat humour and outrageous plot line combine brilliantly."

But the fact that there are only two reviews at Amazon UK is significant.