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Marie Sharp #4
No, Thanks! I'm Quite Happy Standing!
Marie is turning 69 this year, but there are no signs of her slowing down - she has a new male lodger (very into conspiracy theories), an intractable iPhone to wrestle with, and a trip to India to plan!
As usual the year brings plenty of challenges as well as opportunities. Marie is burgled, which sends the street into uproar. Ex-husand David is still around and getting rather too close for comfort. Marie's cat Pouncer is starting to look rather peaky (her conspiracy-theorist lodger is convinced someone is poisoning him), and probably worst of all, it seems her grandson Gene is getting too old to want to hang out with his granny any more. Maybe learning to graffiti and speak street slang will help win him back?
Full of Virginia Ironside's inimitable wit and featuring plenty of popular characters from this series, this is a hilarious and touching look at getting older from one of Britain's best observers of relationships.
352 pages, Paperback
Published March 9, 2017
6 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
About the author
Virginia Ironside
49 books40 followersVirginia Ironside is best known as one of Britain's leading agony aunts. She started on Woman magazine before moving to The Sunday Mirror and Today newspapers. She now writes a weekly column for The Independant. She also appears regularly on radio and television on such programmes as Radio 4's 'Woman's Hour'. Her many books include self-help titles on subjects such as bereavement, as well as the children's spooky adventure series
Burlap Hall
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 3, 2022
Sweet realistic reflection of life in early retirement years for those perhaps with no real financial worries. Sweet & sugary at times with a definitely hint of a honeysuckle cottage chocolate box ending.
Ah…
Ah…
May 25, 2024
Would have really enjoyed this, but the anti-Indian attitude??
Okay, for the record I am not denying any of the criticism of the country. But what pisses me off is this typical Western portrayal of 'India as a dirty, poor, overpopulated, nasty, boilingly hot'. And just that and nothing else!!!?
I was so deeply upset reading that whole India trip episode. It had every negative stereotype you would ever associate with that country.
The entitlement of white people never fails to amaze me.
First of all, the way they act like their country is the best? Elite level of privilege?
Like London doesn't have poverty? Homeless people? Even beggars who accost you on the street?
There's trash on the road and by the pavements, which is even more ridiculous bcoz of the outrageously high taxes people pay here.
The normal population is always teetering on the brink of poverty. Just a couple pounds inflation on gas or electricity or a hike in rent, and that's right. We are out on the streets! Or cowering in our beds under a bunch of layers bcoz we can't afford to put the heating on.
A city where the sun disappears for days (days!), even weeks on end! The cloudy skies and the gloomy weather just reflecting the attitude of the people underneath bcoz what else can they do?
The homes are too insulated to be cool for summer and bcoz there are no fans or adequate ventilation, you boil away in your room even at 22°C, but oh, they are not THAT insulated to protect you against the biting cold, so if you can't afford the heat, too bad. Just die.
Everyone is struggling.
Pay thousands of pounds to live in a hovel. A sofa shoved in a kitchen corner is designated as a 'lounge'; a stove top and a microwave is an 'open-plan kitchen'. And before you can draw breath to complain, that 'apartment' is snapped up. So you better rush to live in that hole, and be thankful that you're paying over half your salary for that privilege, bcoz what's the alternative?
Getting a doctors appointment? Prepare to wait a couple of months. Or have a paracetamol and let us charge you £10 for it.
Oh, you simply can't wait? Then chalk out a couple hundred pounds in private clinics. For consultation.
Oh and did I mention that clinics have the same working hours as other jobs? So if you want to see a doctor AFTER you're done working, what a joke! You skive off work and come see them.
And don't even get started on the dental and the eye clinics. Let your teeth rot and go blind, that's simpler.
The food? The only thing the British can do well, is sweets. Oh they are expert in that. But apart from that sweet taste, the only other flavor is bland. So you better get used to it real quick. Diabetes or starvation, pretty good options.
The terrible weather, the ultra high cost of living where they'd charge you to breathe if they could figure out how, the bland food, the utterly rubbish public transport system where you're either an hour early for your appointment or an hour late, no in-between.
London is good, only for the rich! And come on, which city isn't?
You want to critique India? Look at your rubbish country first!
The audacity of these white colonisers to shit on a country THEY are directly responsible for the state of!
Hundreds of years of leeching off all our resources, killing our leaders and intellectuals, causing one of the greatest famine in history (the unnecessariness of it!), and the Partition! The country is STILL reeling from that!
And they have the audacity to judge us??!
Every single privilege you enjoy is based on exploitation! Exploitation of the very place you now turn up your nose at!
There was this one part, where the servants, like 4 adults and 3 kids, are living in a tiny hut and the MC is horrified that how can people live in such tiny quarters. And in the next scene, the American who employs them boasts about how he pays them a salary twice what they'd usually get and how they're so pathetically grateful to him for it that they wait on him hand and foot, at his beck and call 24/7.
And the 'grand' salary he pays them? Yeah, $700 a month!
The bloody cheapskate!
That amount of labour, in a first world country would have cost him thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars! And here, where he's making the servants do literally EVERYTHING under the sun for him, he can't even give them decent housing? Making them live in a hut?? The level of exploitation took my breathe away!
And then you try to portray India negatively?
I just feel the writer could have shown a more balanced view.
The bad food, disease-infested regions, cheap hotels, I mean come on!
£3 won't even get you a burger here and these people expect a hotel room in that and then complain how it's unhygienic. Like yes hello, what do you expect?
Same with the food.
Go to the grossest place they can to save their pennies, walk away with dysentery and blame 'Indian standards'.
India is bloody awesome! Sure, we have a pollution problem and yes, we have a lot of people. But at least we aren't heartless enough to refuse entry and let people drown instead. You want to make something of yourself, India will give you a chance. Unlike these 'superior' British who benefited off of everyone, the leeches, and now gatekeep like hell!
Ugh!
At the very least, Indians have access to cheap and effective healthcare! And far more importantly, we have family! Not those rubbish sole lonely lives in your palatial mansions maybe, but we don't need to make an appointment to see our parents!
A rubbish country where the mom has to pay strangers to watch over her children and go back to work, yeah that's sooooo much better than India, right?
Bloody idiotic!
Anyway, the point of all this is - the writer portrayed India terribly. The same (and worse) can be done to their country as well.
A far better approach would have been more nuanced like - oh everyone loves their home more. You bland Britishers rejoice in your sun-less lands. Other people can like other things.
Okay, for the record I am not denying any of the criticism of the country. But what pisses me off is this typical Western portrayal of 'India as a dirty, poor, overpopulated, nasty, boilingly hot'. And just that and nothing else!!!?
I was so deeply upset reading that whole India trip episode. It had every negative stereotype you would ever associate with that country.
The entitlement of white people never fails to amaze me.
First of all, the way they act like their country is the best? Elite level of privilege?
Like London doesn't have poverty? Homeless people? Even beggars who accost you on the street?
There's trash on the road and by the pavements, which is even more ridiculous bcoz of the outrageously high taxes people pay here.
The normal population is always teetering on the brink of poverty. Just a couple pounds inflation on gas or electricity or a hike in rent, and that's right. We are out on the streets! Or cowering in our beds under a bunch of layers bcoz we can't afford to put the heating on.
A city where the sun disappears for days (days!), even weeks on end! The cloudy skies and the gloomy weather just reflecting the attitude of the people underneath bcoz what else can they do?
The homes are too insulated to be cool for summer and bcoz there are no fans or adequate ventilation, you boil away in your room even at 22°C, but oh, they are not THAT insulated to protect you against the biting cold, so if you can't afford the heat, too bad. Just die.
Everyone is struggling.
Pay thousands of pounds to live in a hovel. A sofa shoved in a kitchen corner is designated as a 'lounge'; a stove top and a microwave is an 'open-plan kitchen'. And before you can draw breath to complain, that 'apartment' is snapped up. So you better rush to live in that hole, and be thankful that you're paying over half your salary for that privilege, bcoz what's the alternative?
Getting a doctors appointment? Prepare to wait a couple of months. Or have a paracetamol and let us charge you £10 for it.
Oh, you simply can't wait? Then chalk out a couple hundred pounds in private clinics. For consultation.
Oh and did I mention that clinics have the same working hours as other jobs? So if you want to see a doctor AFTER you're done working, what a joke! You skive off work and come see them.
And don't even get started on the dental and the eye clinics. Let your teeth rot and go blind, that's simpler.
The food? The only thing the British can do well, is sweets. Oh they are expert in that. But apart from that sweet taste, the only other flavor is bland. So you better get used to it real quick. Diabetes or starvation, pretty good options.
The terrible weather, the ultra high cost of living where they'd charge you to breathe if they could figure out how, the bland food, the utterly rubbish public transport system where you're either an hour early for your appointment or an hour late, no in-between.
London is good, only for the rich! And come on, which city isn't?
You want to critique India? Look at your rubbish country first!
The audacity of these white colonisers to shit on a country THEY are directly responsible for the state of!
Hundreds of years of leeching off all our resources, killing our leaders and intellectuals, causing one of the greatest famine in history (the unnecessariness of it!), and the Partition! The country is STILL reeling from that!
And they have the audacity to judge us??!
Every single privilege you enjoy is based on exploitation! Exploitation of the very place you now turn up your nose at!
There was this one part, where the servants, like 4 adults and 3 kids, are living in a tiny hut and the MC is horrified that how can people live in such tiny quarters. And in the next scene, the American who employs them boasts about how he pays them a salary twice what they'd usually get and how they're so pathetically grateful to him for it that they wait on him hand and foot, at his beck and call 24/7.
And the 'grand' salary he pays them? Yeah, $700 a month!
The bloody cheapskate!
That amount of labour, in a first world country would have cost him thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars! And here, where he's making the servants do literally EVERYTHING under the sun for him, he can't even give them decent housing? Making them live in a hut?? The level of exploitation took my breathe away!
And then you try to portray India negatively?
I just feel the writer could have shown a more balanced view.
The bad food, disease-infested regions, cheap hotels, I mean come on!
£3 won't even get you a burger here and these people expect a hotel room in that and then complain how it's unhygienic. Like yes hello, what do you expect?
Same with the food.
Go to the grossest place they can to save their pennies, walk away with dysentery and blame 'Indian standards'.
India is bloody awesome! Sure, we have a pollution problem and yes, we have a lot of people. But at least we aren't heartless enough to refuse entry and let people drown instead. You want to make something of yourself, India will give you a chance. Unlike these 'superior' British who benefited off of everyone, the leeches, and now gatekeep like hell!
Ugh!
At the very least, Indians have access to cheap and effective healthcare! And far more importantly, we have family! Not those rubbish sole lonely lives in your palatial mansions maybe, but we don't need to make an appointment to see our parents!
A rubbish country where the mom has to pay strangers to watch over her children and go back to work, yeah that's sooooo much better than India, right?
Bloody idiotic!
Anyway, the point of all this is - the writer portrayed India terribly. The same (and worse) can be done to their country as well.
A far better approach would have been more nuanced like - oh everyone loves their home more. You bland Britishers rejoice in your sun-less lands. Other people can like other things.
June 14, 2016
'No thanks! I'm quite happy standing' is the third novel about Marie Sharp, independent O.A.P. or senior citizen as the Americans would say, series.
The story is really a diary, the gentle goings on and ramblings of a woman approaching seventy. It is very British and helps if you know London, but if you don't the amusing antics of Marie and her friends will still make you smile. The trip to India really made me laugh.
If you are looking for amusing, light-hearted reading, a comfy book for bedtime reading or just a laugh this is the novel to try.
The story is really a diary, the gentle goings on and ramblings of a woman approaching seventy. It is very British and helps if you know London, but if you don't the amusing antics of Marie and her friends will still make you smile. The trip to India really made me laugh.
If you are looking for amusing, light-hearted reading, a comfy book for bedtime reading or just a laugh this is the novel to try.
August 16, 2019
The Diary of Marie Sharp aged 69 and a half
This has a wonderfully realistic feel to it as it embraces the reality of ageing in a gently humorous way, mingled with the inevitable pathos, misunderstandings and irrelevancies that turn out to matter which litters everyone's life, but maybe grow in significance as we age. Marie Sharp is over the hill but far from ready to give in to that and has a lot going on with a new lodger who is into New Age therapies and conspiracy theories, an ex who seems to want to formalise their relationship when Marie is very happy as things are, old friends with problems and a trip to India.
What I really enjoyed:
The writing. This is excellent and engaging. the dairy format can be a tricky one to pull off, but the author does so with style.
The characters. Not just Marie herself but all the people in the book feel like real people who you might meet. By the end of the book, you are almost one of the cast and feel as if you are sitting around the table and chatting over dinner or helping out in the charity shop.
The optimism. This is very subtle and yet permeates everything. Even when Marie herself can't see the bright side the reader usually can.
Issues. The book covers a wide range of issues that are both specific to ageing folk and things that everyone can relate to.
What I struggled with:
Emotional moments. In general, these were well handled but there were a few times I felt a little short-changed by Marie's reaction to a situation. Even when this was covered by an absence of diary entries, it seemed to me someone keeping such a dairy would share more about how things impacted - as indeed does happen with other issues.
Overall Thoughts:
A really great read for adults of any age but particularly for those who are over fifty and either contemplating this stage of life or are already living it. This is the fourth book in the series and I was fortunate enough to be provided with a copy through Amazon's Vine program. I would strongly suggest a new reader starting with the first book 'No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub', which I fully intend to now go back and read.
This has a wonderfully realistic feel to it as it embraces the reality of ageing in a gently humorous way, mingled with the inevitable pathos, misunderstandings and irrelevancies that turn out to matter which litters everyone's life, but maybe grow in significance as we age. Marie Sharp is over the hill but far from ready to give in to that and has a lot going on with a new lodger who is into New Age therapies and conspiracy theories, an ex who seems to want to formalise their relationship when Marie is very happy as things are, old friends with problems and a trip to India.
What I really enjoyed:
The writing. This is excellent and engaging. the dairy format can be a tricky one to pull off, but the author does so with style.
The characters. Not just Marie herself but all the people in the book feel like real people who you might meet. By the end of the book, you are almost one of the cast and feel as if you are sitting around the table and chatting over dinner or helping out in the charity shop.
The optimism. This is very subtle and yet permeates everything. Even when Marie herself can't see the bright side the reader usually can.
Issues. The book covers a wide range of issues that are both specific to ageing folk and things that everyone can relate to.
What I struggled with:
Emotional moments. In general, these were well handled but there were a few times I felt a little short-changed by Marie's reaction to a situation. Even when this was covered by an absence of diary entries, it seemed to me someone keeping such a dairy would share more about how things impacted - as indeed does happen with other issues.
Overall Thoughts:
A really great read for adults of any age but particularly for those who are over fifty and either contemplating this stage of life or are already living it. This is the fourth book in the series and I was fortunate enough to be provided with a copy through Amazon's Vine program. I would strongly suggest a new reader starting with the first book 'No! I Don't Want to Join a Bookclub', which I fully intend to now go back and read.
February 10, 2020
Mixed feelings about this book, some parts I really liked because they were amusing whilst others I found extremely predictable.
March 15, 2021
A mildly amusing diary of an ageing woman, but a little middle class, suburban and smug
December 17, 2021
Marie Sharp is a refreshing character! Her inner dialogue is delightful. I love it when a book can make me laugh, and this one did - more than once.
February 28, 2023
Virginia Ironside writes, among other things, novels about the “joys” of getting older. This is a lighthearted chuckle at life with all its silly problems. Written as a month per year journal it’s a good one to take to bed for that easy read before sleep. 3.5 is my actual rating.
June 18, 2024
I'm going to be honest, I was disappointed. This book went on a bit and wasn't very exciting. I read until September and then skipped to December just so I could finish it.
March 24, 2022
FAB! Another hilariously great rant by Marie. Laughed out loud. :)
February 8, 2023
Amusing, warm and perceptive.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews