For anyone who googles this.
It was caused by using the word “select” in the post.
Possibly other reserved words could also cause problems?
phew, it worked.
BTW there wasn’t any wp_eshop_emails table. I think this was totally my own fault, from when I shifted the wordpress install from my local server to the remote one improperly (moved the files but not the database, then tried to reinstall but obviously left some bits behind).
Before this fix, the eshop plugin kept telling me to deactivate and reactivate, but when I did it would still say it again.
Anyway thanks so much.
Thanks, I’ll give it a try and post back.