The Timewaster Letters [Formato Kindle]

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.

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...