Daily Mail - London (Jan 09, 06:36 PM)  THAT time of year is here again: yet another American know-it- all has leapt on to the market with yet another self-help romance guide.

The latest publication due to take the lonely world by storm is Stop Getting Dumped: All You Need To Know To Make Men Fall In Love With You.

Well, here's my tip: too many more of these on your bookshelf and you'll scare away the window-cleaner, let alone potential husbands.

At least The Rules (the most famous best- seller in this genre) had a low-key cover and a fairly vague title.

This new one is bright yellow, featuring the words STOP GETTING DUMPED!

in giant, red capitals over a photograph of a woman in a dustbin.

Your self-esteem will take another dive just carrying it to the till.

Any man glimpsing this on your coffee-table will be disappearing in a taxi before you've had a chance to take the cinnamon buns out of the oven.

Those would be the cinnamon buns which the author Lisa Daily suggests you bake before any gentleman's arrival.

NOT TO eat, you understand. Simply to fill your home with a domestic, homely fragrance which will win the fellow's heart and guarantee that he proposes immediately.

In fact, says Lisa, if you aren't married within three years of reading this book, you can have your money back.

I have already made a note in my diary: 'January 2006, invoice Lisa Daily for pounds 5.99'.

Allowing for inflation, I'll probably ask her for a round tenner.

Of course, it's possible that I might meet the man of my dreams before that date, but I think I would avoid marrying him simply in order to spite Lisa Daily.

I am bored, bored, bored of all these snaring guides which clutter the bookshops, squeezing money from the wallets of vulnerable women and convincing men that we're all desperate for marriage at any cost.

The self-help romance author is the modern equivalent of the medieval witch who took coins from the village girls in return for magic potions to spirit a husband from the forest.

There is some truly impressive advice between the covers of Stop Getting Dumped. I think my favourite is 'Make sure your clothes are flattering'.

Gee, thanks, Lisa, I needed to pay six quid for that suggestion. Another classic is 'Don't be bitchy, spiteful or cruel'. And there I was thinking the best way to win a man's heart was to slap him about the face.

Apart from that, it's the same old stuff we've read in every other self-help romance guide since the boom began.

You know: never phone a man, never pay the bill, never suggest a date.

Lisa is stricter than most: not only should you never phone a man, she says, you should never return his calls either.

God forbid you should fall in love with a guy who has any self- esteem issues of his own.

You'd kill him.

She goes on to insist that you should never accept a weekend date later than Wednesday, make your own plans if he calls too late, and date several people at once until the one you like insists on 'being exclusive'.

The great unspoken irony is that you are creating this packed life to demonstrate your independence - yet secretly, it is all about him.

You are only pursuing other activities in order to tell him about them.

The very last thing you are being is independent.

The really terrible thing of course is that Lisa Daily is absolutely right.

All these authors are. I think that's why I resent them.

All these rubbishy paperbacks telling women to play games and hide their true feelings are actually offering enormously sound advice.

It works. I know that because I am a genuine commitment-phobe - I really don't want to see a man five nights a week, or move in with him, or see less of my friends for his sake - and nothing, I find, makes men more demanding and acquisitive than that.

Needier women are only being honest when they tell men of their desire for companionship and hopes for marriage - but, sadly, their honesty tends to scare people off.

YOU CAN understand male thinking, really. I was out with an old male friend the other night and the girl he's dating sent five anxious text messages, phoned him twice and then left a message saying she was bored and lonely.

Why, I practically dumped her myself.

So perhaps Lisa Daily and her colleagues are performing a useful service in advising ladies to look busy and act less keen.

I just wish it wasn't all built around snaring a man. Why not actually be busy of your own volition? That way, even if you don't bump into a husband, at least you aren't wasting your time.

EVEN little ones have to look trendy these days.

Woolworths Ladybird might not be Baby Dior, but at a fraction of the price it has something that every mum can afford. Ladybird Rugby top from pounds 6.99.

Available January to April, 6-12 months & 3-4 years.