General relativity is not renowned for being the most straight-forward
theory. In this talk, we'll set about cutting it down to size. We begin by
recalling some basic concepts and how they differ from classical Newtonian
mechanics - one may even argue that they are more intuitive! Then a quick
introduction to the conformal method pioneered by Lichnerowicz and York
will serve as our cartography tools, allowing us to identify each and any
reasonable spacetime by a set of parameters.