What a wonderful night in Kingsbridge, Devon, Cilla made a return but this time she look strangely like Dave as two rounds of contestants tried their best to win themselves a date.
Much fun had by all and most importantly the evening raised over £2000 for CoppaFeel! and the Ronald McDonald Foundation.
Thanks too to everyone who bought a copy of Date!
DC
www.davecornthwaite.com
@DaveCorn
www.facebook.com/expedition1000
Kaff is just a short walk from Brixton Tube (Atlantic Road) in London and has a great selection of drinks, comfy sofas and , most importantly – a fine pile of cakes to choose from.
If you have any questions or favorite parts of the book that you want me to read from – tweet me @davecorn or leave a message on our Facebook page
The book of DATE, plus a beer and cake – what more could anyone ask for on a Thursday night?
See you there!
64-68 Atlantic Road, Brixton, London, SW9 8PY
To find out more about Date, visit www.thebookofdate.com
I stand at the bar, clinical with its swilling, suited clientele and chrome surfaces, and watch: two women in the corner clinking glasses of white wine. One man and a woman a bit further down the bar, shoulder to shoulder, facing the dance floor. Four women who are joined by a fifth, clip-clopping in her heels back from the toilet, and there, over there by the mirror, is one lady. Very pretty, short brunette hair, sat on a cubic leather stool, checking her phone, looking around. She’s been there for about twenty minutes doing exactly the same thing and, frankly, she looks lonely. So I gulp down my drink and stroll over, nervous as hell because this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever approached a strange woman in a bar and I have no idea what’s about to happen. She looks up as I reach her and I want the shiny black tiles to part and swallow me whole. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be doing this, talking in a silent goldfish-type way to this lady who doesn’t know me. My arms swing by my side and I don’t know what to do with them as they feel kind of … well, limp. I tuck my thumbs into my pockets and then realise I’m standing like a cowboy, but one without a hat, or a pistol, or appearing to be cool, and I wish I hadn’t necked that drink, because I could really do with a glass to nurse right now.
‘Can I help you?’ the lady asks.
‘Ah.’ I say, looking at her. ‘Ah.’ She cocks her head slightly and frowns at me, drawing her legs into the stool and leaning back a little bit too far for her to be entirely comfortable. I realise that I’m scaring her and decide to do something about that. ‘Hi. My name is … er, Dave.’ I breathe deeply, scratch my head quickly and then triumphantly finish my bit, ‘and I … I, well, I’m single.’
She straightens up, smiles, pushes herself off the stool into a standing position, and then she moves towards me slow and feline, sexily, gripping my jacket with both of her perfectly manicured hands before pulling me towards her slightly parted lips, all red like strawberries, her eyes closing behind a hundred thick, curly black lashes. And she kisses me, flicks her tongue against my teeth, snake-like, as though she wants to taste me with all of her senses. She moves her lips across my cheek, towards my earlobe, nudging, squeezing, whispering, ‘let’s go…’
Oh bugger, I really cocked that up. She’s not kissing me. Of course she bloody isn’t. She’s still sat there on her stool, reaching down and gathering up her bag, staring at me one last time before jumping to her feet and spinning towards the door. ‘Good for you,’ she growls, and she’s gone.
I’ve always had a hunch that I’m not very good at approaching women in bars, and now I’ve actually tried it my fears have been confirmed. I’m left alone in the middle of a crowd, standing in front of an empty stool with red cheeks and a pounding, painful heart, looking very much like a rubbish cowboy.
An ever-lovely collection of reviews on Amazon is growing swiftly but this week Google has informed us about two write-ups for Date on personal blogs, we thought we’d share them because they’re rather nice…
Boys Love Boys by Emily Bell
Do you remember the film ‘What Women Want’ with Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt? It’s a gem of a chick flick where Mel Gibson, a cocky dude in advertising who cares about no one, gets electrocuted in the bath and gains the ability to hear women’s thoughts. It’s genius. Here women are portrayed in their psycho, list making, neurotic, how does my hair look, I need to get my nails done type way and Mel gets an insight into the female brain. It’s pretty scary to be honest….
> Read the rest
Cornthwaite Melted My Little Black Heart by Jenny Hao
Humans can do amazing stuff these days. They can invent new techniques for minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery, they can programme drones to fight wars, they can even hold two Guinness World Records, skateboard across Australia, paddle board the length of the Mississippi and write a book about dating.
> Read the rest
‘Is it good?’ they ask.
‘Well, I’m kinda biased.’
I enjoyed writing DATE (probably more than I did doing the research) and I found great pleasure in sitting opposite someone on the tube the other day as they were reading the book and shaking with what I think was a thorough case of the chuckles, but if you want an honest assessment of whether you’ll enjoy this read, take a look at the reviews on Amazon.
And if you have read DATE, please please write your own review, however you feel about it!
> Read reviews of DATE on Amazon
> Get a paperback
> Purchase for Kindle
For copies of DATE in Paperback, click here
To buy DATE on Kindle, or on the Kindle App for your iPad, phone, Mac or PC, click here
PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VALENTINES DAY HAS NEVER BEEN SO CHALLENGING:
CHARITY SPEED DATING EVENT ATTRACTS RECORD-BREAKING ADVENTURERS
On 14th February the Queen of Hoxton in Shoreditch is breaking out heart-shaped confetti for a Valentines event, with a difference.
Speed Dating for Boobies, in aid of breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel, was the brainchild of Adventurer Dave Cornthwaite, a five-time World Record-breaker who has skateboarded across Australia and paddleboarded the length of the Mississippi. But Cornthwaite’s hardest challenge was much closer to home, when he tried to find a girlfriend by attempting to date 100 women in 100 days. He says:
‘I wanted to mingle the launch of my book, DATE, with a dating event that imitated the intensity of my dating challenge. With 50 girls and 50 guys dating each other for just 100 seconds, this is a great twist on speed dating for an amazing cause.’
Another high profile guest on the night is Bonita Norris, who has skied to the North Pole and is the youngest British female to climb Mount Everest. But, she says, she’s never been speed dating. ‘I’m apprehensive about going on 50 dates in one night, but I’m not exactly girlfriend material, I spend most of my time living in a tent in very cold places!’
Also dating on the night is multiple ocean rower Elin Haf Davies, and Sean Conway, who is about to attempt the fastest circumnavigation of Earth by bicycle. But, Cornthwaite stresses, you don’t need to be an Adventurer to come along, the event is open to everyone who appreciates a challenge.
Tickets are selling fast and with a copy of DATE going to every participant, this is one speed dating event that nobody will leave empty-handed.
Tickets are £12, available through www.boobdating.eventbrite.com
//ENDS//
NOTES FOR EDITORS
For more information contact Dave Cornthwaite on dave@davecornthwaite.co.uk or by phone on 07872 986084
Venue: The Queen of Hoxton, 1-5 Curtain Road, Shoreditch , London, EC2A 3JX
Times: Doors 18.45pm. Event begins 19.30pm.
Ticket website: www.boobdating.eventbrite.com
The Charity
CoppaFeel! is a breast cancer awareness charity striving to encourage young people to be aware of their bodies and check their boobs!
Web: www.coppafeel.org
Contact: Kris Hallenga - kris@coppafeel.org
About Dave Cornthwaite
An adventurer, author and motivational speaker, Cornthwaite is best known for his Expedition1000 project, twenty-five separate journeys of at least 1000 miles in distance, each using a different form of non-motorised transport. Throughout the project he aims to raise £1,000,000 for charity. DATE is his second book.
Website: www.davecornthwaite.com
About Bonita Norris
Bonita is Britain’s youngest chick to climb Mount Everest, she’s an ambassador for the watch brand TAG Heuer and outdoors brand Karrimor. At the age of 24 she has also skied to the North Pole and climbed some of the highest mountains in the Himalayas, but she has never been speed dating.
Website: www.bonitanorris.com
Quotes
“Copping a feel on the first date is never guaranteed but we do encourage partners to get involved with this life saving activity! We’re so excited to host our very first speed dating adventure with Dave and hope it will not only get people talking about boobs, but help us raise money so we can keep talking about it to a lot more people.”
– Kris Hallenga, CoppaFeel founder
“CoppaFeel! is a really important campaign to raise awareness about breast cancer diagnosis, so I’m delighted to be able to do my bit for this amazing cause. Guys who I will be looking for on the night will be the most charitable ones - the biggest donation to CoppaFeel! will be the best way of getting my attention”
- Bonita Norris, Mountaineer
“This event is a win win. Great cause, great fun, and if you’re not enjoying a date it’s fine, because you’ll be moving on in a minute!”
– Dave Cornthwaite, Adventurer
“Bonita says she’s looking for the most generous guy on the night. I keep telling her you can’t get more generous than organising the whole event, but she just pretends she hasn’t heard me.”
– Dave Cornthwaite
The ONLY way to spend your Valentines evening. 100 people, 100-second dates, 50 chances to end your night under the…erm…mistletoe?!
Dave Cornthwaite, the Author of DATE, and the marvellous ladies from breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel! would like to invite you to a night of fun, flirting and boob-aware speed dating on Valentines Day, 14th February 2012.
50 girls, 50 boys and 50 super fast dates, this really is SPEED dating!
Included in the price of the ticket is a free paperback copy of DATE, and before the event begins Dave will give a little reading and offer some dating tips to ensure you don’t waste those 100 seconds with the boy/ girl of your dreams.
So, if you’re only vomiting a little bit after that last paragraph, this is the event for you! Sign up now, you won’t regret it!
All profits go to CoppaFeel! to help their amazing work encouraging everyone to get to know their boobs and prevent breast cancer before it’s too late.
See you on Valentines Day!
> Find out more about CoppaFeel!
> Read a sample of DATE on Amazon
He’s in training for a series of new challenges in 2012 so delivering copies of DATE around town helps everyone! So if you order a copy of DATE, expect Dave to rock up on his skateboard within a few hours!
> Read a free sample
> Check out the reviews
> DATE on paperback
> DATE for Kindle
Help us raise £’s for CoppaFeel! With Valentines Day approaching I thought I’d share the love around, and I need your help.
Between now and 14th February I’ve lowered the price of DATE on Kindle, and I’m asking EVERYONE to buy it. EVERYONE! Yes, that includes you! You can read a Kindle book on your Kindle, or any iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android phone, Mac or PC with the free Kindle App downloaded, it’s easy!
SUPPORTING BREAST CANCER AWARENESS
Throughout this offer I will donate 100% of profits on Kindle sales to breast cancer awareness through CoppaFeel! If you’d like to meet Kris, the lady who set CoppaFeel! up, here’s the foreword she wrote for DATE. If you’re not convinced yet, you will be after you read this, she’s quite amazing and so isCoppaFeel!
I’M SOLD ALREADY!
Great! - Download the Kindle App here - BUY DATE ON KINDLE, HERE
MARKETING - LET’S GET ‘DATE’ TO THE TOP OF THE TABLE ON AMAZON
Amazon rankings are not based on total books sold, they’re correlated on short bursts of sales, and although I have no way of knowing exactly how many copies need to be sold for DATE to go right up towards the top of the rankings, I do know that on days when only 20 copies have been bought, it’s been right up there. It was even No.1 in Relationships on Amazon for a little while.
Of course, the higher the book is ranked, the more copies will sell, which theoretically will keep it right up there, generating more money for CoppaFeel!
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
1) If you don’t have a Kindle, download the Kindle App to your iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, PC or Mac - download Kindle here
2) Download your copy of DATE - download Date from here (or if you’re not in the UK, here)
3) If you’d like to order a discounted Paperback - fill in the short form here and we will send you a link to order your copy for £5 + P&P.
4) If you’d rather donate to CoppaFeel without buying a copy of DATE, that’s cool too. Donate here
If you’d like to read some reviews before you buy, here they are
If you’d like to read a sample for free, click the book cover here
And if you feel so inclined, please do leave a review on Amazon once you’ve made it to the end!
Get Your Copy
> Paperback – click hereThis review for DATE was posted on Amazon by someone calling themselves ‘Silverhorse’
Having been recommended `Date’ by a colleague just prior to a Christmas largely spent on Easyjet I downloaded it to my Kindle with no great expectations, because men don’t write about dating,do they? And even if they did, wouldn’t it be in a swaggering, Nuts’ esque manner designed to maximise the lothario reputation of the writer? I have to say that I was pretty taken aback. Having spent much of the last six years with a man who believed that sympathy was just a word placed in the dictionary between `s?*t and syphllis’ and that emotional literacy was a myth created by dungaree clad primary school teachers and Guardian readers, it was something of a revelation to be reminded that there really were men out there who really were searching for `the one’.
This may seem like an odd thing to say about a bloke who decided that going on 100 dates in 100 days was the best way to accomplish this goal, which seems like a somewhat mysogynistic concept to begin with. What about the poor `datees’ who knew nothing of `the challenge’ and who were also just scratching around the internet in hope of finding their soulmate? It is testament to the real likeability of the writer that you don’t simply end up thinking him to be someone who uses genuine people as mere`material’- by the end of the book your sympathies are firmly with Cornthwaite rather than many of the plethora of women that he dates, who range from sublimely described Goddesses that he falls for to the sad, the badly dressed and the socially challenged (most of whom he is generous about, rather than overly derogatory). I won’t spoil the plot, but in the end the hunter becomes the hunted,and the author’s description of rejection and recovery is one of the most moving I have read in recent memory (and I teach sonnets for a living. Sometimes.). If you’re bored of chick lit or fancy reminding yourself of what it is like out there in the land of first dates then this is really worth reading and great fun. Even if you are stuck on endless uncomfortable orange planes in the season of festive fun….
Order your copy of Date online now for £7.99 + P&P
Click here for UK customers
There is no stage 5.
One month after the diagnosis I turned my shock and anger into pure kick–ass, immediately making it my full–time mission to encourage friends, my generation and young people everywhere to keep hold of their wonderful, carefree lives by getting to know their boobs. Breast cancer can affect young people at any age, and from this message CoppaFeel! was born. We exist to remind every young person in the UK that checking their boobs isn’t only fun, it could save their life. Awareness is at the core of our operation - we’re like a friendly bop on the head when you least expect it, encouraging a lifelong, proactive habit. We’re not here to scare the bejeezus out of people, we aim to educate and empower so we can reduce the number of fatalities from this horrific disease. I refused to let breast cancer wreck my party, and I refuse to let it wreck yours too.
Thank you to Dave for being endlessly supportive of our cause, the most wonderful thing to have come out of having cancer (yes, it’s not all bad) is getting to meet so many cool people, and Dave is a big shiny beaming light of a cool person. I’m honoured to be forewording this very insightful and entertaining book, I hope you too will fall in love with Dave’s unrivaled humour, compassion and honesty. I doubt he ever fully comprehended what he was letting himself in for and, with hindsight, skateboarding across a continent probably seems like a doddle in comparison, even if the dating involved more laugh-out-loud moments than you can shake a stick at.
You may now be wondering if I am one of the women in these pages, being paid off for his sneaky little plan by being allowed to write a few words about our ill-fated love affair, disguised as a charity dedication. Alas, I’m not and no, he genuinely cares about Britain’s boobs. We’re really thankful to Dave for dedicating this book to helping us reach more young people with our life saving message. And finally, in case you’re wondering, I do have a boyfriend, whom I met when I had NO HAIR and a bloated crusty face, so take it from me, there is hope for us all.
Now, off you go to www.coppafeel.org and check your boobs immediately. And check your partners’ too, although that’s not guaranteed to happen on your first date, I’m hastened to add.
> 10% of all profits raised by sales of this book will be donated to CoppaFeel.Org
> UK: Amazon Kindle
> US/WORLDWIDE: Amazon Kindle
There are multiple factors that impact on a book’s sales on Amazon. Of course it helps if the book is half decent, but a growing bank of decent reviews (with lots of stars!) is the first port of call for many potential readers.
It’s still very early days for DATE, but in two weeks it already has double the amount of reviews that my first book does, and that’s been out since 2008!!!
If you’ve read the book I’d really appreciate your views and thoughts, it makes such a big difference AND it means we can raise some more funds for CoppaFeel.
Here’s the latest review, by a delightful reader named Kim (no, I don’t know her!)
This book came along just at the right time for me, being a little disillusioned with the dating scene and now, thanks to Dave’s brave - and sometimes crazy! - experiences, I feel like I can make a new year’s resolution to face online dating in 2012. Perhaps I’ll even keep a record - a girl’s version of DATE!
Back to the book…if you don’t mind laughing out aloud on the tube and receiving a few strange stares, or reading out extracts to your friends to the point they feel like they know Dave as much as you do, and even if you’re not single - DATE is a must read. It’s not just a dating book: it’s a fantastic insight into how men think and interpret women. Not only funny, it’s poignant, thought-provoking and inspiring. Thanks, Dave…fancy a date?!
> This is an excerpt from DATE, out now on Kindle
I decided that 30 minutes without contact was just about long enough to hang around in the cold for a date that seemed likely not to arrive. Judging by the email I received later, I may have misjudged the situation:
Where were you? I got to London Bridge and tried calling you but I got someonecalled Andrew. The way you behaved last night probably tells me a lot more than I would have learned by actually meeting you. Unfortunately I have concluded that you are impatient (is 30 mins some magic number? - all my friends said “Everyone would wait at least 45 minutes because you know what London Transport is like”). You don’t think (did you even consider that perhaps something bad had happened to me - hit by a car/mugged and phone stolen). You have no common sense (you don’t seem to have taken any practical actions like checking with station staff if there were any engineering works on my line, or any trains cancelled/delayed, or asking around for an internet cafe/booth and trying to contact me). You don’t give people the benefit of the doubt (my first thought when I couldn’t find you was not “he’s stood me up” but “I must have taken down his number wrong” so the first thing I did after walking several times between the two exits was to find an internet point and contact you). Oh, and you were a wimp (obviously got cold and went home).
The whole thing was a massive role reversal - I am supposed to be the irrational strop-throwing female, yet it was me who, despite being completely impractically dressed, was running around taking all the practical steps to try to find you while you were sat at home drowning in self-pity in the warmth.
In addition, plenty of men tell me that I am very punctual and they practically “expect” girls to be “at least” 10-15 mins late for a date because something goes wrong with their hair/nails/makeup/clothing/tights/shoes when getting ready - I don’t think you’re quite appreciating the amount of time/effort us girls take to get ready or you would have certainly waited longer than half an hour. I only regret not arranging to meet one of the other men queuing up to meet me from this site (one was willing to drive from Bristol to meet me!) or spending the evening with my friend who just got dumped after 9 years, or my Granddad who is recovering from an operation, and that I wasted my time on you.
