Customer Reviews

The Timewaster Letters

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I cannot disagree more with aurelius' review. Naughty aurelius. If you can't say something nice then don't say anything at all, didn't your mother teach you any manners, luv?

This is the funniest book I have ever read, so funny that the neighbours on both sides phoned the police on hearing manic laughter emmanating from my bedroom window non-stop between the hours of 10pm and 2am last night.

The police confiscated my copy of the book for causing a disturbance of the peace and as they drew away from our house at 5am (after I'd made them a nice cup of tea) I could hear manic laughter drifting playfully out of the windows of the police car, as the policeman who wasn't driving sat reading Robin's book.

I do not believe it is normal for British policemen to sample confiscated material under normal circumstances, so a big thumbs up to Mr Cooper for making our local bobbies more daring.

I have ticked the box saying I am over the age of 13 even though I'm 46. I hope that's OK.

Loved it. A collection of silly but exceedingly polite letters written to real organizations pitching Cooper's ideas(seemingly pluck from the air). A few themes are carried through the collection (wife's bad ankle and the ongoing struggle to fix the garden shed doors) regardless of the letter's subject matter. I was continually amazed by the good-humoured and patient letters of reply. Bloody lovely sketches too. Delightful.

Very much pleased with the condition my book came in. It's intreaguing, witty and is worth more than one read. I recommend it for anyone, you won't be wasting your time reading this book, unlike the recievers of those unfortunate letters

It is rare that I read a book all the way through in a day, but I completed this one in a three hour car journey (not while driving though!) At 142 pages, it's an easy book to read and is like a literature version of the channel 4 series Fonejacker.

There are some good letters that were worth book marking, including the poem about aluminium set to 'Oh my Darling Clementine' and the letter to the Society of Existential Analysis. The letters also give you some good ideas for letter writing and can be light-heartedly amusing, steering clear of puerility.

However, this is where the similarity between the hype (on the cover) and the content ends. The book does seem like someone's hobby when bored, and the timewasting nature of the letters follow the tawdry cliche of being a waste of your (the readers) time.

It is reminiscent of reading one of those Clarkson books of magazine articles - essentially what you get is just a load of raw material, which could do with processing into something better. Maybe this is why the fawning praise is from TV comedians - it's good source material, but little more.

So, to conclude, if you are a comedian, then this is a good book for you, as it has much in the way of diverse and useful muse material. However, if you are after comedy then get a hold of some early Jeremy Clarkson or Douglas Adams. Better still, experiment a little by getting Nikolai Gogol's St Petersburg Tales, which are a lesson in just what can be made with comedic ideas...

This is as funny as it gets -- and I read a lot of humor books!! The author is a genius - so original, so random, so FUNNY! I couldn't stop laughing, even when reading on the subway. I bought a copy for my mom and a copy for a friend. Seriously!

Wonderful book, humour is subtle sometimes but always fresh. Like Monty Python? You will love this book.

Well... Mr.Cooper did something I thought no one would ever think of... take a number of funny-named/strange companies and associations on the UK and write them absolutely silly (but looking like they are serious) letters. These letters propose daring and new projects or ideas (each one sillier than the one before). And he gets many polite (yet funny) responses.

I think this is a great book to have. The author writes very well and he has a great sense of "written" timing.

Some of my favorites:
He writes to a famous clarinetist asking for a favour: help him gather 200 other clarinetists and surprise his wife for her birthday (for the couple is a fan of "all things clarinettal").

He writes to a "named-after-someone" Society saying that he went to school with THAT person and wondering what did THAT person do in order to have a society named after him... since he was the one who used to bully THAT person when they were in school.

He writes to a strange sound-related company trying to show them a new machine (designed by him) that reduces noise level by 25 times in a certain area. He gets a welcoming responce from the company and sends them a completely stupid technical diagram that makes no sense.

Or... he writes to an turism association trying to sell them an awful add campaign based on a horrible character.


You should try it.

I rather enjoy the dry humour and silliness of the author, but after reading a few of the letters I soon became bored.

There is a similarity with all of the episodes that quickly wears thin on the reader.

Overall I was disappointed.

Robin Cooper thinks he is funnier than he is. Essentially a one-idea book, he fills page after page with puerile letters to recipients with names and/or addresses which are particularly silly or peculiarly British (or both). The greatest humour lies in the fact that these addresses are real, rather than in anything that his limited wit is able to request of the addressee. Added to that is the fact that none of the replies really transcends the bland, or takes the game up to him, and the whole thing is really a rather onerous affair.

To call this adolescent is being grossly unfair to adolescents: read 2 pages in the bookshop and put it back on the shelf.