What do you think?
Rate this book
Unpublished Letters to The Daily Telegraph #3
I Rest My Case: Unpublished Letters to The Daily Telegraph (Unpublished Letters to the Daily Telegraph
The third book in the bestselling and hilarious series of ‘Am I Alone . . . ?’ books
From bin Laden to Pippa Middleton’s bottom, and from riots to Rebekah Wade, Telegraph readers offer their maverick and hilarious take on the year’s events, in the letters the paper didn’t publish, because they were just too off-the-wall, too outrageous, or too waggish for an august Letters page. The first two volumes of unpublished letters to the Daily Telegraph, Am I Alone in Thinking? and I Could Go On . . . have both been Christmas bestsellers, and sold well in excess of 100,000 copies. Once again, it will be an essential Christmas present to give or to receive.
SIR - A question for your male which would you rather be invited to – the Royal wedding, or one of Silvio Berlusconi’s bunga bunga parties?
SIR - All these years I have lived under the impression that Middleton Bottom was a rural west-country village.
SIR - It is a pity Osama bin Laden was not taken alive. He could have been sentenced to go through airport security for the rest of his life.
SIR - May I suggest that if the police are to use water cannon to disperse rioting students, they include some soap in the tank?
SIR - Is a super-injunction the morning-after pill for celebrities?
From bin Laden to Pippa Middleton’s bottom, and from riots to Rebekah Wade, Telegraph readers offer their maverick and hilarious take on the year’s events, in the letters the paper didn’t publish, because they were just too off-the-wall, too outrageous, or too waggish for an august Letters page. The first two volumes of unpublished letters to the Daily Telegraph, Am I Alone in Thinking? and I Could Go On . . . have both been Christmas bestsellers, and sold well in excess of 100,000 copies. Once again, it will be an essential Christmas present to give or to receive.
SIR - A question for your male which would you rather be invited to – the Royal wedding, or one of Silvio Berlusconi’s bunga bunga parties?
SIR - All these years I have lived under the impression that Middleton Bottom was a rural west-country village.
SIR - It is a pity Osama bin Laden was not taken alive. He could have been sentenced to go through airport security for the rest of his life.
SIR - May I suggest that if the police are to use water cannon to disperse rioting students, they include some soap in the tank?
SIR - Is a super-injunction the morning-after pill for celebrities?
- GenresHumorNonfiction
168 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
2 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
About the author
Iain Hollingshead
21 books14 followersIain writes feature articles for a range of publications, The Daily Telegraph in particular. Until recently, he also wrote a regular column called Loose Ends in Saturday's Guardian. He has taken part in a number of radio shows, including BBC Radio 4's Today programme and You and Yours.
His father is a GP and his mother is a surgeon. He has one elder brother. He went to Eton from 1993-98. Iain graduated from Cambridge University in 2003 with a first class degree in History. He worked for a year in Westminster - at Vote 2004 and the private office of Michael Howard - before pursuing a full-time career as a journalist. Vote 2004 was described in the Sunday Telegraph as the "most successful political campaign of all time". Iain was runner-up in the Guardian Student Media Awards as Columnist of the Year. While at university he also founded and edited The Cambridge Slapper - a popular satirical magazine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Ho...
His father is a GP and his mother is a surgeon. He has one elder brother. He went to Eton from 1993-98. Iain graduated from Cambridge University in 2003 with a first class degree in History. He worked for a year in Westminster - at Vote 2004 and the private office of Michael Howard - before pursuing a full-time career as a journalist. Vote 2004 was described in the Sunday Telegraph as the "most successful political campaign of all time". Iain was runner-up in the Guardian Student Media Awards as Columnist of the Year. While at university he also founded and edited The Cambridge Slapper - a popular satirical magazine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Ho...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 13, 2021
I am the opposite of your standard Telegraph reader. I am decidedly left of centre and have never even lived in a Tory stronghold. This book was acquired years ago in a charity shop for the dizzying cost of 50p because there’s usually a letter or two in these types of collations that are amusing. I must admit, the majority of them - professing such contrary and to me general distasteful views and opinions - were distinctly not my cup of tea. I did however have a little smile when a letter came from one of the towns near the village I grew up in in that irrational way humans have of liking things because they come from home. It is definitely the case that I generally found the place names more amusing than I did the actual letters. That being said, as expected when purchased there were a couple that led to a slight upturning of the corners of my mouth. However, given the number that were contrary to my general attitude it probably wasn’t worth it overall, and had it taken me more than a couple of hours to skim through it I would likely have found myself resenting the time spent.
June 28, 2019
Second volume of genuine letters which never made it into the Daily Telegraph. This book came out in 2011, so some of the subjects have faded from memory. A lot of them made me snort with laughter though, irony still appears to be alive and well in the Brits.
June 20, 2017
Funny, and topical unpublished letters to the Daily Telegraph from Colonel Blimp et al of little Britain..
November 4, 2014
I strayed off from my usual reading trail and borrowed this from the library (along with 2 others also in the same series). I find myself chuckling every now and then at the letters; I look forward to reading the other 2 books. :)
Some of my favourite ones:
"Sir - Celia Walden may find a young woman applying make-up on a train 'mesmerisingly awful'. She should count herself lucky. On a train out of Newcastle today, I witnessed a woman applying under-arm-roll-on deodorant." Jacqueline Wells
"Sir - I have a wife and a Sat Nav giving me directions when I'm driving, but if we ever get lost, somehow it's always my mistake." G.B.
I am guilty of doing that to my man too. :)
"Sir - why don't the Icelanders do something about their volcanoes?" David Hall.
And the last one,
"Sir - Why is it that as I get older, your crossword compilers conspire to make the clues more difficult?" Edward Hibbert
Some of my favourite ones:
"Sir - Celia Walden may find a young woman applying make-up on a train 'mesmerisingly awful'. She should count herself lucky. On a train out of Newcastle today, I witnessed a woman applying under-arm-roll-on deodorant." Jacqueline Wells
"Sir - I have a wife and a Sat Nav giving me directions when I'm driving, but if we ever get lost, somehow it's always my mistake." G.B.
I am guilty of doing that to my man too. :)
"Sir - why don't the Icelanders do something about their volcanoes?" David Hall.
And the last one,
"Sir - Why is it that as I get older, your crossword compilers conspire to make the clues more difficult?" Edward Hibbert
February 13, 2013
If you liked "Am I Alone in Thinking...?!, you'll love this too.
February 2, 2016
Some very funny letters - if you can ignore the sexist comments littered throughout the book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews