update-notifier error

[NoOp]

I'm a bit stuck... updated my son's desktop from 9.04 to 9.10 and I'm
now getting the following error from update-notifier. I've purged &
reinstalled update-notifier (including the /usr/lib/update-notifier/
folder) and am still getting the error. Any suggestions where I might
look to resolve this? Note: all other bits from the upgrade seem to be ok.

$ sudo /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check
Error in sys.excepthook:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check", line 27, in _handleException
    sys.stderr.write("E: "+ _("Unknown Error: '%s' (%s)") % (type,value))
  File "/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check", line 24, in _
    return gettext.dgettext("update-notifier", msg)
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'dgettext'

Original exception was:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check", line 169, in <module>
    gettext.bindtextdomain(APP, DIR)
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'bindtextdomain'

g at ggxp:~$ ls -l /usr/lib/update-manager/
total 4
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1745 2009-11-02 01:12 check-new-release
gg at ggxp:~$ ls -l /usr/lib/update-notifier/
total 24
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2397 2009-10-15 09:29 apt-cdrom-check
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   12 2010-01-14 11:17 apt-check -> apt_check.py
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6597 2009-10-15 09:29 apt_check.py
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  351 2009-10-15 09:29 cddistupgrader
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  115 2009-10-15 09:29 update-motd-reboot-required
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1236 2009-10-15 09:29 update-motd-updates-available
gg at ggxp:~$

2.6.31-18-generic #55-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jan 8 14:55:26 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux