Hi Bob,

Good to see you at the 'boro Saturday, Final sales were £50 ish. Not bad for
a local book fair. Good to meet Ann Stockton as well, she is welcome any
time if she wants to repeat her purchases (best customer of the day!!!).
Got home about the time you were demolishing the veggie beast.
How did the evening session go?

Roger


----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2003 5:30 PM
Subject: Re: An All-Day Burn's Night Invite


Hi James, Sally,
Well we poor hungry English had our Burns Supper! It was all as real as
Disneyworld, I guess.
A piper played in the honoured guests, the poem was read (well, declaimed is
a beter word for it!), the knife was waved, the haggis was cut at the
apppropriate point, everyone was supposed to down all their whiskey in one
gulp, then - after the food -the piper played again, songs were sung and
more of Burns poetry was read. (The veggie Haggis was actually very tasty!).
Despite all the tweeness of the experience I actually thought it was
important to glimpse something of another language, another time, and I'm
sort of thankful that the Scots have a day (a night) when a literary figure
is brought back to mind. I mean, I doubt that Slough would hold a John
Betjeman night...
The rest of the event was canny too (as a Scot and a Geordie can agree on
using the word!). 12 hours of poetry, lots of books sold by lots of
publishers who - until a year or so ago - could have expected big bookshops
to stock them, and plenty of fine crack!
Bob