A bas la différence!

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  Zenga Longmore

  A bas la différence!

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• Dead Sexy

  Kathy Lette

  Simon & Schuster,, pp. 341

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Alexander Larman

What happened to the Rishi Sunak I knew at school?

Once they get to Réunion, Kit refuses to consummate the marriage. This is upsetting for Shelly who masturbates so much she needs ‘terry towelling sweatbands on her wrists’. The newly-weds while away the pages exchanging ceaseless quips which Kathy’s devotees describe as a ‘savagely funny indictment on the sex war’. Judge for yourself:

‘All you gals are ponderin’ is why your idiot boyfriend won’t put the toilet roll on with the serrated bit facin’ out.’ ‘Ha! Men don’t ever put the toilet roll on! A man’s idea of changing a toilet roll is to put it on the back of the cistern.’

What is his secret? The hypothetical reader who has managed to stay awake will discover Kit has a golden-headed, epigram-spouting daughter hiding in his honeymoon suite whom he has smuggled out of the country to escape from her ‘heartless, ruthless bitch’ of a mother. The best way he can secretly abduct the child is to do so on a reality television show which will be watched by millions of people. I told you the plot was silly. And it gets sillier. Kit and his daughter are kidnapped by crazed terrorists. The bitch-mother mysteriously turns up and, after making lots of vapid remarks on the differences between men and women, pays the rebels to kill chiselled Kit. Shelly rescues everyone by performing James Bond-style stunts. In between there are cyclones, bombs, erupting volcanoes and unconvincing sex.

But no one takes anything to heart. Every ridiculous catastrophe serves as a fresh excuse for a tediously contrived wisecrack. ‘Guns are like men,’ drones an interchangeable character to a gun-totin’ rebel leader. ‘Keep one around for long enough and eventually you are going to want to shoot it.’

There is no tension, no change of tone; just endless ‘gender difference’ jokes, and if Kathy Lette’s brand of humour begins to pall, then God help you — especially if you are being forced to review this frightful tosh.