Saturday evening was spent at Neil Gaimans 's talk. It was his part in the New Zealand International Arts Festival . We went with our friends Jen, Dom & Jordan. The compere (she seemed nice) introduced him as the Amadaus Mozart of postmodernist literature. Aside from the fact that I usually detest the term "postmodern" when assumed to mean anything (can you define it satisfactorily?), I thought it was quite a clever description. The talk itself was excellent - he read 3 short poems. I can't remember the order, but they were: 1) A story called "My Last Landlady" about a murderous landlady in an unnamed English seaside town. Sounds like Brighton. 2) A story about the bones of Saint Odhrán buried under the church on the Island of Iona which is just of the west coast of Scotland. Downpatrick , the town I went to school in, gets a breif mention :) 3) A beautiful poem (which he described as his credo) about reading Goldilocks to his daughter....