With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed (20 page)

How We Met: Angela Farmer and Osborne Lonsdale

ANGELA FARMER
: For God’s sake, I keep explaining, we
can’t remember.
Osborne thinks it might be something to do with the theatre, because he used to review plays in the sixties and early seventies, but I’m not so sure.

OSBORNE LONSDALE
(quietly): She keeps squinting at me. It’s scary.

FARMER
: The trouble is, it’s not bugging him, it’s only bugging me. He says we’ll probably just remember one day –

LONSDALE
: One day, yes –

FARMER
: But meanwhile I’ve gone nutsy cuckoo, you see, so that’s why I asked you to see us together, because it might concentrate his mind a bit and get the whole thing sorted out.

LONSDALE
: Or it might not.

FARMER
: Thanks. So, Mister ‘Independent on Sunday’, perhaps you could ask us some questions, to get the ball rolling?

INTERVIEWER
(hesitantly): Um, OK. Er, you might not believe this but actually I’m a clairvoyant with exceptional powers, and I can probably
tell
you how you met, if you really want to know.

FARMER
: What? Really? (To Lonsdale) Can you believe this?

LONSDALE
: No.

FARMER
(to interviewer): Sir, have you ever heard the theatrical expression
deus ex machina?

INTERVIEWER
: I don’t think so.

FARMER
: Well, that’s a relief, because I don’t know what it means. OK, so tell us, how did we meet, then? Do you need any special records on, and the curtains closed, and that kind of thing?

INTERVIEWER
: No, but it would be nice to hold the rabbit.

FARMER
: OK. I don’t imagine you’re going to print this, are you?

INTERVIEWER
: I doubt it.

FARMER
: Then I’d just like to say this is the best interview, aside from Osborne’s, I’ve ever had.

INTERVIEWER
: Thanks. I’m drifting off, now. Would you like to hold hands? It doesn’t add anything from my point of view, but you do seem very fond of each other. Anyway, I see a garden shed. I hear muffled screams –

LONSDALE
(gasps): Not Makepeace?

INTERVIEWER
: I see a figure in a gypsy cloak unlocking the door. There is a name beginning with ‘B’.

FARMER
(with a shriek): It’s Barney’s. I let you out of Barney’s shed!

LONSDALE
: Did you?

FARMER
: That’s it! A kid had locked you in!

LONSDALE
: Oh, good. Right. Lovely. So that’s solved that, then. You can stop giving me those funny looks.

INTERVIEWER
(still in trance): It’s a ‘B’, but I can’t quite get the rest. Is it Benny? Bradley?

FARMER
: I just told you, it’s Barney.

INTERVIEWER
(unhearing, in a world of his own): Possibly Bailey, but I’m sticking my neck out.

FARMER
(ignoring him): Well, so: Barney’s shed. Phew, that’s a weight off my mind.

LONSDALE
: But I don’t understand what you were doing at Barney’s house when the kid locked me in the shed. Wasn’t it ages after the divorce?

FARMER
: Well, I was upset. And like any spurned first wife, naturally I was hanging around his new home and hoping to scatter bits of glass in the kiddies’ sand-pit under the guise of an old, gnarled gypsy woman selling hub-caps door to door.

LONSDALE
: Hub-caps?

FARMER
: Something, yeah. Actually I think it
was
hub-caps. But he saw through my disguise.

INTERVIEWER
(to himself): Brierley, was it? Baloney?

LONSDALE
: What do we do about the chap in the trance?

FARMER
: He didn’t say anything about waking him up, did he?

LONSDALE
: Better leave him, you think?

INTERVIEWER
: Battersby? Bombay?

FARMER
: Sure. He looks quite happy, with the rabbit.

INTERVIEWER
: Bali Hai? Broccoli? Bambi?

My Childhood: Trent Carmichael

My childhood was absolutely normal in every respect, and nothing horrible ever happened to me to make me become a crime novelist, if that’s what you’re angling after. I had a mother and father who loved me enough to call me Trent and give me a start in life. I did all the usual childish proto-writer things, such as reading indoors when everyone else was playing rough games, and learning poetry by rote so as to be teacher’s pet. That’s not too revealing, is it? I mean, that’s normal. We had holidays in Sussex, and I enjoyed Knickerbocker Glories, but I don’t think it warped me in any way at all. You can’t read anything into a Knickerbocker Glory. Thank you, I really enjoyed doing that. Smashing.

The Questionnaire: Angela Farmer

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Someone to love me, and not run out.

What is your greatest fear?
That he’ll run out.

With which historical figure do you most identify?
Cinderella, maybe. Snow White. All those pathetic innocents. Sleeping Beauty.

Which living person do you most admire?
The confident woman who lives inside my answering machine and who tells me the time the messages arrived. She harbours not a single doubt in the whole fibre of her being.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My inability to refuse interviews.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Their need to ask questions.

What vehicles do you own?
Why? Are you an out-of-work mechanic, or something? Who the hell wants to know what vehicles I own? I have a
car
.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Long-distance phone
calls to London newspapers, to apologize for being snappy.

What objects do you always carry with you?
Castrol GTX, bit of rag, spanners, overalls, tyre levers, jump leads, battery recharger, spare wiper blades.

What makes you most depressed?
Running out of drink before 7 p.m. on a Sunday.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
That I’ve got crow’s-feet. But on the other hand, it’s worse for the crow that’s got mine.

What is your most unappealing habit?
I dig stuff out of my ears and then eat it.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
‘Ech! Earwax!’

What or who is (was) the greatest love of your life?
My last ex-husband, see below.

Which living person do you most despise?
My last ex-husband, see above.

What is your favourite smell?
The Tahitian gardenia on the tropical hillside of Hana Iti in French Polynesia. Sorry, that’s not true. Um, gin and tonic.

What is your favourite word?
Glenmorangie.

What is your favourite building?
How many buildings do you think I’ve got?

What is your favourite journey?
Back from the off-licence.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Abstemiousness.

On what occasions do you lie?
Whenever I find sitting too strenuous.

What is your greatest regret?
That I am too good at acting to appear in
The House of Eliott.

When and where were you happiest?
When Osborne, my new chap, said he would stay in Honiton if there was a reasonably good peanut-brittle supplier, and we found out there was.

How do you relax?
By pottering in the garden. I also do diggering, prunering and weedering.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Less work.

Which talent would you most like to have? To
do less work, and not worry about it.

What would your motto be?
Something will turn up.

What keeps you awake at night?
Nothing. Not even sheds burning down.

How would you like to die? Is
that a threat?

How would you like to be remembered?
That’s very kind of you. Yes, I’d like that a lot.

Quote of the Month (Sheds) – Osborne Lonsdale

‘I don’t know how I got into sheds, but the funny thing is this. Once you’re in them, it’s very hard to get out again.’

LYNNE TRUSS
is one of Britain’s best-loved comic writers and is the author of the worldwide bestsellers
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
and
Talk to the Hand.
Her most recent book is
Get Her Off the Pitch!
She reviews for the
Sunday Times
and writes regularly for radio.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favourite HarperCollins authors.

From the reviews of
With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed:

‘This book will become a perennial comic delight … this Truss must never be stopped’

SUE LIMB

‘Searchers after lightness, brightness and wit will find all three in this delightful novel … a plot whose coincidences and misunderstandings outnumber those in a P.G. Wodehouse novel’

MAUREEN OWEN,
Daily Mail

‘Sex, violence, murder and psychoanalysis lurk in the garden shed in Lynne Truss’s
With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed –
a breezy, rude, pleasurable alternative to cutting the grass’

GERALDINE BRENNAN,
Observer

With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed
Making the Cat Laugh: One Woman’s Journal of Single Life on the Margins
Tennyson’s Gift
Going Loco
Tennyson and His Circle
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life (or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door)
A Certain Age: Twelve Monologues from the Classic Radio Series
Get Her Off the Pitch: How Sport Took Over My Life

FOR CHILDREN

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really
Do
Make a Difference
The Girl’s Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can’t Manage Without Apostrophes!
Twenty-Odd Ducks: Why, Every Punctuation Mark Counts!

Over 3 million copies sold worldwide

Anxious about the apostrophe? Confused by the comma? Or just plain stumped by the semi-colon?

Join Lynne Truss, self-confessed punctuation stickler, in this impassioned and hilarious tour through the rules of punctuation. A runaway bestseller, it is both a brilliantly clear guide for the punctuation challenged and enthralling entertainment for the grammar devotee.

‘A punctuation repair kit. Passionate and witty … fresh and funny’

Independent

‘Truss deserves to be piled high with honours’

JOHN HUMPHRYS
,   
Sunday Times

This is not a book about manners, nor a book about etiquette. It is a book about rudeness.

Lynne Truss, bestselling author of
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
and champion of correct punctuation, returns to fight for the cause of politeness. A joyous rant against the everyday rudeness we’ve all become accustomed to,
Talk to the Hand
brilliantly dissects the incivilities of modern life. Why are other people so crass, selfish and inconsiderate? Whatever happened to ‘please’ and ‘thank you’? Why do we have to put up with so much swearing? And whatever happened to public-spiritedness?

‘A lively and witty broadside against the modern “eff off” society’

Sunday Express

‘Trademark Truss … (very) readable, (very) funny, (very) engaging’

Observer

Get Her Off the Pitch!
is the story of one woman’s foray into the very masculine and rather baffling world of sport. Lynne Truss spent four years as an unlikely sports writer for
The Times.
It was a job that took her around the world (via the most difficult journeys and least glamorous hotels) and introduced her to some of the greatest living sportsmen (and many argumentative men with clipboards).

It is a hilarious, perceptive and at times moving account of those four strange years. It is perfect for those for whom sport is a matter of life and death, for those who have no idea what all the fuss is about – and for everyone in between.

‘Who will want to read this book? Just people like me who are largely indifferent to sport but enjoy literate, amusing, properly punctuated writing about anything’

Daily Mail

‘She can write comedy for Britain’

The Times

A brilliant collection of Lynne Truss’s journalism – recording the life of a metropolitan refugee from coupledom.

For seven years Lynne Truss, in columns for
The Listener, The Times
and
Woman’s Journal,
tried to make her cat laugh. Along the way, ‘Margins’, ‘Single Life’ and ‘One Woman’s Journal’ collected a band of devoted fans, yet the cat remained unimpressed. But, under headings such as ‘The Single Woman Considers Going Out but Doesn’t Fancy the Hassle’ and ‘The Single Woman Stays at Home and Goes Quietly Mad’, we discover a writer not only obsessed with cats, but prone to over-reacting generally – to news stories, shopping, passive smoking, Christmas, coupledom, boyfriends, snails, sheds, Andre Agassi, cooking instructions, requests of ‘How’s the novel going?’ and personal remarks of any kind.

‘A small masterpiece of comedy … A continual hoot’

The Times

‘Trenchant writing, invigorating valour, and a shrewdly observant wit’

Scotland on Sunday

A Certain Age
collects Lynne Truss’s twelve highly original monologues, about love, romance, friendship and family. Whether writing from the point of view of fathers, daughters, married men, cat lovers or ‘other women’ she is always brilliantly perceptive, sardonic and memorable. All are funny, touching and beautifully observed as one would expect from this bestselling author.

‘Dazzling … sad, funny and, of course, exquisitely written’

Daily Mail

‘Beautifully observed … Truss is simply a huge talent’

Guardian

It is July 1864 and the Isle of Wight is buzzing with eccentric creative types. A morose Alfred Tennyson is reciting
Maud
to empty sofas, whilst photographer Julia Margaret Cameron white-washes roses and tries to capture Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) in heroic poses. Into this cauldron of unrequited love and egotism step an acclaimed painter, his sixteen-year-old wife and a father-and-daughter team of phrenologists.

Unexpectedly moving and written with a mischievous sense of humour,
Tennyson’s Gift
is a triumphantly funny foray into love, literature, eccentricity and beards.

‘Enormously entertaining, a delicious confection’

Sunday Telegraph

‘A rollicking read. It is mischievous, light-hearted and fun’

Literary Review

‘Terrific … witty, surprising … and hugely assured’

Sunday Times

Struggling with the modern balancing act of personal and work life, successful writer Belinda Johansson decides to employ a cleaner while she gets to work on her dream project: a book about the
doppelgänger
in gothic fiction. But Belinda’s fascination with the
doppelgänger
is starting to invade her life for real. Is her Swedish geneticist husband really who he says he is? Is her cleaning lady taking her responsibilities a bit too far? And what do clones, Abba and a performing circus rat named Neville have to do with anything?

‘A classic comic novel, unashamed, exuberant, fiendishly clever, and a joy to read’

Daily Telegraph

‘Chock-full of “characters”, slapstick and mystery … achieves laughs through real inventiveness’

The Times

‘Going Loco
is wonderfully underplayed, unpredictable and unexpectedly sinister’

Sunday Express