The Rosie Project....a book review

Anyone who knows me will be well aware of my love of books and the fact that I am a prolific reader. However, despite this, I have never written a book review. Well, maybe at school but not out of choice. I think I am always moving on so fast to the next book that I don’t get round to reviewing the last one. In a way I am a chain reader, I do not feel comfortable if I don’t have a book which I am currently reading. Anyway, I have decided to do a book review and see how it goes.

I have recently read a fantastic book called The Rosie Project by Graeme Simison. I don’t often go for the romantic comedy genre but I am glad I did this time.

It is a fabulously funny, thought provoking and interesting look at a socially inept man who is trying to find a wife. His OCD/Aspergers/Autistic type symptoms are easily identifiable from the beginning and the fact that the character, Don, is a scientist makes his life all the more ordered. You cannot help but like this character from the start and anyone who is a fan of Big Bang Theory will love his Sheldon type qualities. As with the Sheldon character, his OCD type characteristics make him more appealing as a character. The fact that he is totally unaware socially but is highly intelligent shows a kind of person who centres their life on what is important to them rather than what is important to other people.

The idea that Don Tillman is looking for a wife using a scientifically based questionnaire, based on rather specific criteria, comes across as a nerdy, scientific thing, but could just be seen as a more rigid, personalised version of dating agencies.  The only difference is that Don is asking questions which are important to him rather than generalised questions. He knows what he wants and asks for it. 

This highly intelligent geneticist has, however, totally forgotten to factor in the human factor. When he meets Rosie he does not really consider her as candidate for The Wife Project (his project for finding a wife) as she is so different from what he thinks he needs. Spending time with her is much nicer than he imagined it would be and we, the reader can see the attraction early on. Slight changes in his very rigid routine are the first sign that he has feelings for Rosie. The Father Project (A project Don is working on, for Rosie) seemed to be Don’s way of maintaining some kind of relationship with Rosie as well as, presumably, interesting his scientific side. The deeper they go into the Father Project, the more Don’s strict routine gets disrupted and he does not seem to be overly bothered. At first he starts to compensate and then just appears to let a few things go so that he can do the many things that the Father Project requires. It is fantastic to see the character grow and come out of his shell and improve himself as he embarks on this adventure.

His friendship with Gene and Claudia shows that, despite his lack of social skills, Don can have close friends. He does verge on being over familiar with them: for example, walking into the bedroom to borrow one of Gene’s shirts instead of asking, but I like the friendship between them. His experience with friends is mainly down to an interesting association with Daphne, an old lady he takes under his wing. He shows a remarkable tender side making a huge effort to provide her with extra "birthdays" as her Alzheimer’s set in.

As well as the fascinating character of Don Tillman, the book also has many other interesting people in it. Rosie, of course, is a complex woman with her own ideas who falls for the slightly quirky geneticist and his strange ways. Gene and Claudia have their own small world in the book mainly revolving around their open relationship and connections with Don.  Dave, Phil and the Dean of the university all play a part as do various other characters.

I am not going to give any more of the plot away as I think this is well worth the read and would be suitable for men or women. I do identify in part with the ordered and particular way Don does things and I do rather like the premise that anyone can find love. As this book is a few years old there is already a follow up, The Rosie Effect........ I have to read this!

What's new

Yes, I am behind with posts again. I do however have four in the pipeline right now. Two are half written, one is in the planning stages and one is an idea.

Despite being very busy at the moment I will try and get these all sorted as soon as possible. :-)

I have been told that it is not always easy to find things on my blog so below are a few tips:

• ·        Search via Google as I use a Google blog site. orangecoffee69.blogspot.co.uk

• ·        If you are only viewing my blog via a phone or tablet then scroll to the bottom of the page and click on view web version.

• ·        Check out the featured post. This is new and I will regularly change the post in that section of the blog.

• ·        The posts with the highest stats are automatically loaded to the popular posts section of the blog page.

Enjoy xxx

My thoughts on Pokemon Go

Pokémon Go..... What is it? Why children and adults so obsessed so quickly are and what on earth do they actually find?

On the surface a game that gets children out and about seems like a good idea as they will be getting exercise and using their geography skills to find places. Sadly it seems you have to be at a certain place at a time which may not be convenient for an adult to go with you and not entirely conducive to safety.

 Unfortunately GPS and Google maps means that children are not using their map reading skills at all....... they don't need to. Good idea in general Pokémon people but more thought and planning was needed.

Why are adults so obsessed??? Some played the original games, watched it on TV and collected the toys but really people, calm the hysteria, you are supposed to be grownups. Now put the electronic devices down, go back to work and forget about the weird creatures. (No, not Brian at the next desk, we knows he's weird but you have to interact with him)

Finally can anyone tell me what people are ACTUALLY looking for? When you get to where you are going is there a picture, a sticker, a cuddly animal, a man in a suit or does your screen just light up and you have found another one??? To be honest a man in a suit is scary on many levels. Who would be in the suit, do you have to take him home, how many giant Pokémon can you hide before someone notices? What do you feed one?

To be honest a game that people can play together is good and I know you can have teams, but I can’t see it ending well. Sending children out in the night to parks seems a rather short sighted idea with many complications. In this world as we are today, sadly people will fight against each other. (It has apparently already happened.)

Maybe we could have a new game. It's called "find the politician". We need to scour the country to find decent men and women to be politicians. If we find one we gain a better NHS, a higher paid fire service or poverty free families. OK, it's a long term game and you may have to wait for your “prize”, but it seems far more rewarding than finding weird dragon like creatures in the park. Sadly the decent politician is a creature more elusive than a Pokémon in Central Park.

Consuming my brain

When you get caught in an eating binge the whole world closes in around you. The only thing that matters is eating what is filling your mind. Stopping is not an option, being sensible and pulling yourself back does enter your head. The whole world is that cake or those biscuits or that pile of chocolate and consuming it. If you can wait long enough to make a coffee and sit down with a book then you feel like you have achieved so much. More often than not most of it gets consumed in the kitchen while waiting for the kettle to boil.

Sadly after the first few mouthfuls the taste is lost to the speed and need to consume. The more you eat the sicker and more bloated you feel. Deep down you know you should stop and occasionally you do. If you do stop the pull to go back and finish it wins and you go back to complete whatever mammoth thing you chose as your “treat.” Of course it is not a treat because it makes you feel bad. You feel sick, bloated, hot, angry and low.

Once you start to consume the food that you have chosen to indulge yourself with you turn into a single minded machine with a purpose to devour all of it until it has gone. There is no taste anymore just the desire to finish the food and hide the evidence. (Even when there is no one to hide it from.)

The best you can hope to in this situation is to come to your senses and to throw the rest away and get it out into the bin where it is out of reach and hidden away. Sometimes this happens and other times you eat it all and hide the wrapping in the bin, out of sight and unknown.

If someone tells you not to buy the food in the first place then they have no idea what goes on in your mind. The following is what you go through in your head in the shop:

·        It will be a treat.

·        I will make it last and have a little every day.

·        I will be strong this time and not eat it all in one go.

·        I shouldn’t put it on my credit card but it’s the last time.

·        As I am going to make it last I can buy the more economical, larger size.

·        I will be ok I can still get into that dress, slim for that night out, get the guy or look good for the new job because I am on a new eating plan from tomorrow.

You really should be shouting the following at yourself:

·        Don’t do it, you will eat it all and make yourself feel ill.

·        Don’t be stupid, you have no willpower so it won’t be a treat.

·        Don’t buy more, you will eat it all.

·        Don’t put it on the credit card, you then pay interest on your binge financially as well as emotionally and health wise.

·        You won’t get in that dress, you will feel bad for the first day of that new job, you will feel too ill to go out and no man will want a woman with a bad attitude to her health and eating. (it’s not an attractive trait)

I have tried sheer willpower, hypnotism with a hypnotist, using the Paul McKenna book, CD and app, books, websites and a therapist (which you only get on the NHS when you are showing bulimic tendencies) and incentives.

I know that following something like Slimming World or Weight Watchers is expensive and restrictive and, to be honest, the non-sugar part of my diet is generally healthy. I am also very bad at being told how or what to eat.

To be honest, sometimes nothing works, no can say anything that helps and you know you are the only person who can sort yourself out. It is your mind, your issue and you have to focus and sort it out. Of course that is easier said than done.

I have, however, conquered it before and will do again. Every piece of sugary food I don’t eat is one step closer to stopping. Each cake, bar of chocolate or packet of biscuits I put back on the shelf is a triumph. When I can have just one thing and walk away I do feel amazing. Watch this space.

NO, not that space, it’ full of sugar!

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New post coming soon :-)  xxx

The Perks, Perils and Pitfalls of Being Petite

Ok not petite, I am short, let’s not sugar coat it with French words. I am 5 foot exactly, therefore I am short, under tall, vertically challenged or whatever phrase you like to use. There is no point in pretending that I am a giant Amazon woman as I really don’t think I could pull it off.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually mind being short most of the time; as the saying goes “the best things come in small packages.” There are, sadly things that are harder when you don’t have legs like a racehorse and arms like a gorilla.

Reaching things is a major issue to us little folk and can be quite an annoyance on a day to day basis. At home I have a couple of steps for reaching things in high cupboards, opening windows and cleaning those annoying areas far above the ground. In shops, however I have to rely on helpful shop assistants and the kindness of strangers. I think the world of retail forgets that not all human beings are built like Mr Tall with the arms of Mr Tickle. For example, I was in a clothes shop recently and some of the clothes were so far beyond my reach that I felt like I was a Lilliputian who had strayed into the land of the giants. To be honest all clothes shops think that everyone has the measurements of a supermodel. (But more about that later.)

Supermarkets can be tricky because the one thing you want is on a shelf so high that you would need oxygen if you do reach it and they really frown upon customers scaling the shelves like a deranged chimp in order to get that last packet of chocolate chip cookies that you can’t reach but must have. If you actually dare to ask a member of staff most of them will give you that look that could freeze the flames of hell and they then will grudgingly find a set of steps, put on their oxygen mask and retrieve the essential item for you. I find it is a better bet to approach a tall, male customer and do the helpless female act. (So much easier to pull off when you are short) They always forget that most of us smaller ladies are feisty hellcats and do their knight in shining armour routine.

I have to mention what I call Kermit the frog syndrome. This is when you sit in a chair which is too tall and your legs are dangling in an unattractive manner. Equally annoying is when you sit back in a chair and your feet don’t touch the ground.

So, back to the clothes dilemma. As I previously mentioned the clothes shops, designers and manufacturers all seem to think that all women are tall and slim. If anyone is short and a little bit round they are really not the ideal person to be showcasing the clothes that are usually in fashion. I will say that there are good ranges of petite clothes in some stores but you often have to order them in and they are never a generous cut width wise. Some clothes just don’t look as good when scaled down.  I think we need more short, fat clothes designers as they would understand the needs of the average small shopper. Sadly we are not all elfin as well as being little. I am a 12-14 and I struggle so I do feel for those ladies in the larger sizes who are also knee high to a grasshopper.

Of course there are plus points to being of short stature. Firstly men can be easily fooled into thinking that you are delicate and incapable when you are really gutsy and independent and more than capable of doing anything (apart from reaching high things). I suppose, deep down all woman occasionally want a protective man.

Secondly, ducking and diving though crowds is so much easier when you are small. You can get through a group of people with only a few “Excuse mes” and “oops, sorrys” as you squeeze past.

Obviously being smaller means that you don’t have to bend down so far to pick things up. (Wash out your minds, what did you think I was going to say!!!)  You never have to bend to get through low doorways or under overhanging branches and you always have plenty of leg room in cars, trains and other forms of transport.

So too summarise being a petite woman there are pluses and minuses and, of course, insults and leprechaun jokes, but to be totally honest, I think I would rather be five foot tall than a long legged, Amazon.

Does this tree make me look big?

Land of the giants.

Where did you get that hat??

I have always had an inability to place a hat on my head without looking totally daft. I regularly see people sporting all kinds of hats and looking completely fabulous, sadly I am not one of them.

As soon as I put on any kind of headgear I know I am headed for that look where I could very easily look like I have been allowed to dress myself despite an inability to do so. My look screams “escaped from the asylum and grabbed someone else's hat on the way out”

Now this is really not an exaggeration as anyone who has been unlucky enough to be in my hat wearing presence will tell you. Yes, I do have a tendency to pull a daft face as soon as I put a hat on but I don’t think it would make the slightest bit of difference if I didn’t.

I have actually asked the opinion of the man working in the hat department of M&S in regard to whether a hat suited me. His face said it all while he continued to make polite platitudes until I explained that I needed an honest opinion and would not be offended. He then very politely pointed out the flaws in each hat I tried on.

There are friends of mine who look fabulous in woolly hats, others who suit the baker boy style and some who seem to be able to pull of any kind of headgear. You see women all the time with all manner of things perched on their heads who look glamorous and confident and totally fabulous.

Where some look kooky and cool in a woolly hat, I just look like the girl in the advert for the Blair Witch project crossed with Benny from Crossroads. Woolly hats also tend to plaster my hair to my head in an attractive “just been caught in a deluge” kind of way.

Of course I have tried other kinds of hat but every style I try, whether it is baker boy, baseball or straw hat, they always look wrong like I have borrowed someone else’s hat. As for wearing a fascinator, well the something dropped on your head look is just not cool. I have not got the style to pull off the jaunty side of the head look so it looks like I am wearing a hat for a doll instead of a fascinator.

I wonder if an Australian cork hat swag man style would suit me then I realise that I would probably be the first person ever to take out an eye or get a fat lip from a swinging cork from a piece of headgear and this would really not enhance my image in the slightest.

So I know I can't get away with a bonnet, ( too horrific) a turban, ( too high) a sombrero, ( too wide) a stetson,  ( still too wide) a crown, ( too common) a tiara ( too fussy) or a bandanna. ( I am just not cool enough).

To be honest I have come to the conclusion that the only style of hat I could get away with would be the SAS/ bank robber style balaclava with the eye holes. These ski masks totally hide the identity of the wearer so I could walk round anonymously and everyone would be oblivious to the fact that it would be me. Sorted for next winter then......watch out for me on the news after my inevitable capture by armed police. J