I think there are people who will never escape from their backgrounds because they're not taught to use the language well enough." The answer, according to Truss, is that we "cannot endorse this relativist claptrap that everything that everyone does is of equal value."The banner must be flown for standards. "We're in this marvellous situation where a lot from the old class system has gone," she says, "so why don't we have a different system of manners based on simple morality? Maybe we could move into a different world of being more considerate to each other."In Talk to the Hand Truss has identified what she thinks of as the problem. The big difference with her previous book, I say to her, is that she doesn't really offer any solutions."The thing is that it is supposed to be a funny book," she pleads. "Maybe if I'd stood back for six months, maybe then I would have worked out how I could save the world from yobbery."There is plenty of humour in the book, which deals not only with these larger themes, but also minor gripes such as Truss's irritation at the response "No problem". ("If you ask for the soup in a restaurant," she says, "and they reply 'No problem', you think,'Why would there be a problem? It's on the menu.'")But there's no doubt it is neither as light nor as much of a guide as fans of Eats, Shoots & Leaves will expect. "Maybe they will expect it to be more prescriptive," she says. "I hope they won't think I'm a horrible person, terribly censorious But perhaps I am alone in how censorious I am.
Or perhaps nobody else wants to admit it."The issue of how it comes across only arises because of her last book's phenomenal success. Before that, Truss had worked as a radio scriptwriter and sports columnist, and had written three novels that enjoyed limited sales. Her life, she says, has not changed enormously since the publication of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. "I've had some work done on my house in Brighton, I've paid off my mortgage and my mum's mortgage. So those were lovely things and they take away any worries."She hasn't splashed out? "Maybe you're supposed to go and buy a helicopter But if I had one I know I wouldn't use it.
And if I started hanging around in clubs in London doing coke, I wouldn't know any of the people, so that would be a bit daft." She enquires anxiously: "Does this show a terrible lack of imagination?"The one indulgence Truss does allow herself is travelling first class on the Brighton to London train. In the meantime, she is working on a radio comedy series with Chris Langham, and is hoping to stage a play. Is she prepared to be attacked for the views she espouses in the new book? She could, after all, have avoided controversy by continuing to delve amusingly into the syntactical maze."I could have done a book on the dangling modifier," she jokes "But I do want there to be a debate on this I want other people to run with it. I think there are all sorts of triggers that make you feel that you don't like the world you're living in - just because someone doesn't say thank you The issue is important."BIOGRAPHYBorn: 31 May, 1955. Truss's father worked in the Territorial Army and as a bookkeeper, her mother was a telephonist. She grew up in a council flat in Petersham, Surrey.Education: Tiffin Girls' Grammar School, Kingston upon Thames, and University College, London, where she gained a first in English and was awarded the Morley Medal. She applied for a grant to do a PhD, but started working while waiting to hear if funding was available.Career: Deputy literary editor, The Times Higher Education Supplement; literary editor,The Listener; sports columnist, The Times.
