Fevre Dream

Last night I finished reading the book Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin, which was first published in 1980. The book is set on and around the Mississippi River in the 1850s and tells the story of Captain Abner Marsh, a tough steamboat captain with big ambitions that have been seriously dashed since he lost most of his boats during the previous winter. One night he meets a strange, wealthy man named Joshua York who offers to finance the construction of the steamboat of Marsh's dreams, the biggest, fastest and grandest paddle steamer on the river, which they name the "Fevre Dream". As the boat sets sail, Marsh becomes increasingly suspicious of York and his companions, all of whom sleep during the day and only come out at night. Also York seems to be very interested in a series of mysterious deaths in which the victims are found drained of blood. It's a very entertaining and pretty tense fantasy adventure thriller, and makes a change from some of the more recent vampire stories.

Today I went along to my parent's house for lunch. We were having our "Burns Supper" for lunch. The Burns Supper is held to celebrate the life and work of Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet, who was born on 25 January 1795. It traditionally consists of haggis, turnip and potatoes (haggis, neeps and tatties in Scots). In more formal Burns Suppers there would be someone piping in the haggis on the bagpipes, and when it reached the table someone would recite the Burns poem "To a Haggis" before cutting it and serving it up. We started off with a vegetable soup (which my Mum described as being "like cock-a-leekie soup, only without the cock") followed by the haggis, mashed potato and mushed turnip with some peas. We didn't recite the Burns poem but we did toast the haggis with whisky. It was really nice. I actually like haggis a lot, but we only ever have it once a year.

This afternoon I listened to the first of a three part radio adaptation of The Honourable Schoolboy, based on the 1970s novel by John le Carre, in which a British journalist, and sometime secret agent, is sent to Hong Kong to discover a money laundering operation that is financing Soviet spying operations.