Crawling through my guided tour of my time at the Sydney Writers' Festival, I feel I must also tell you that it included the following:

- lots of coffee, in order to ensure that sleep does not overcome oneself during the afternoon sessions
- a notebook, which I kept losing, meaning that scribbled notes have been found ever since on tram tickets, bookmarks, programmes, free postcards, and a particularly illegible packet of panadol.
- long sessions in the bookshop justifying the purchase of books.
- views of the harbour.
- mints (see coffees, above)

First session on Day 2 was Eliot Weinberger on the ABC Book Show. I decided he would be interesting because I had read some of his pieces on Iraq. He spoke mostly about birds.

No, honestly. Birds. I checked the programme a few times to see if he was the same guy.

He was the same guy, which is impressive, but not particularly interesting. The only real mention of politics was the bit where he said that he got so depressed writing about the political situation in Iraq that he decided to write about birds. After which point, he discussed birds.

Then there was this, featuring John Boyne and Sophie Gee who write books inspired by historical figures. I was fascinated with the session, which in no way attempted to address the topic, and which did not so much as mention birds. John Boyne wrote The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which I purchased immediately and finished reading by close of play that same day. He was a great talker, as was Gee.
Highlights:
Sophie Gee's book came from her thesis topic, which was something to do with rubbish in the eighteenth century and its effect on literature.
John Boyne's ocassional attempts to touch on the topic.
Fascinating descriptions of research undertaken.
Descriptions of writing process.
Lack of discussion relating to birds.

I then went to this, where I discovered the gorgeous Steven Hall, whose book I am itching to read and whose discussion of his book was equally fascinating. Having said that, I had to stalk him throughout the festival in order to hear him speak, on account of him not being able to get a word in during this session. The two women were interesting, too. Rachel Seiffert, whose books I haven't yet read, was very clever and opinionated, but whose approach differed vastly from Gail Jones' very sophisticated, academic perspective.
Highlights:
The three times Steven Hall spoke.
The bits that were read out.
The rather heated moment during a discussion of cliches, where it was revealed that Gail Jones had read Rachel's book (and loved it) but hadn't read Steven's (but intended to), Rachel had read both Steven's (and loved it) and Gail's (which one got the distinct feeling she did not), and Steven wasn't going to own up, but possibly hadn't read anyone's. Indirect references were made to cliches.
Birds were only referred to incidentally.

Then, to the environment. Fascinating discussion of pragmatic approaches to climate change, involving businesses and sponsored by an insurance company.
Highlights:
Insurance company guy defending self interest (very well actually, had me wanting to change insurance companies).
Description of carbon taxes and carbon trading and how they work (always confused me)
Birds hinted at, by way of discussion of nature, but not directly discussed in any way.

Then, possibly the least successful session I attended, not helped by the delerium of being in so many sessions in a row and getting a seriously childish case of the giggles...

This session on digital writing. Highlights:
- The lawyer ran away with this session, completely arguing everyone into a corner. Had everyone supporting copyright laws.
- Getting the giggles and thinking I might require medical assistance.
- Thinking perhaps this session could have used more discussion of birds.

Then, last event of the day, my second favourite (not that I have favourites or anything) was The Big Reading.
There is just nothing like listeining to writers read their own work, or in Richard Ford's case, someone else's much loved work. I have now read Rawi Hage's book (beautiful, imagined the whole thing being read in his accent) and Moshin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which is very clever and very funny. He's another writer I followed around and listened to and took notes on tram tickets. I have started Mister Pip, I have started Lionel Shriver's first book, and I have Rachel Seiffert's book on reserve. It was all excellent. Except:

Lowlight, Andrei Makine read in French. The dude on the projector, projecting the translation, had clearly dropped some acid just previously. Nobody (apart from Standing There Captain of Industry Mello Howzie) had any idea what the lovely French voice was saying, because he was (according to the projection) saying it backwards, very quickly, stopping, starting again, and remaining stuck on one page for several minutes. The poor author had no idea this was happening.

Definite low light, because the other books were all beautifully read.

Perhaps there was a bird in the projectionist's booth.