"WHY AREN'T YOU COMING TO PERTH YOU C***?"

Quoth the irate Perth fan to Neil Gaiman, upon learning the author's forthcoming Asia/Pacific tour stops.

Whoever you are, Irate Perth Fan, you expressed my sentiments exactly, if not eloquently. Mother brought me up too nicely, alas.

Well brought up fellow that he is, the author replied with good grace that his itinerary is scheduled by his publishers and promoters - they point, he goes. He also offered an anecdote by way of apology.

"If it's any consolation, the last time I went to a convention on the Australian mainland it was to go to a Swancon in Perth. And I flew in to Perth, went to the con, then took the four hour flight straight to Sydney to catch a plane home -- where I found myself having to convince an immigration official that I had, of my own free will, flown all the way to Australia in order to spend four days in Perth. This was, I was given to understand, the strangest and most suspicious sort of thing that that particular gentleman had ever encountered..." -- Neil Gaiman

Perth - dangerous and highly suspect. Who knew.