EVERYTHING is very plain and modern now,” a dying man tells the author Jack London roughly halfway through Minds of Winter, warning the writer against the gothic, supernatural excesses of the yarn he is spinning in a hospital ward.

One word to sum up Sunday’s events in Croke Park?

I DON’T know much, but I do know this.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern will deliver his historic address to the US Houses of Congress in Washington today, marking the high point of his final days in office.