SO, how are you this morning?
Are you stately and plump? Have you come from the stairhead bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and razor lay crossed? Have you done this even though you live in a bungalow and there is no stairhead? Are you looking for a round gunrest to mount, even though you're not entirely sure what a gunrest looks like and with the passage of the years people smirk at the word "mount"? Despite this uncertainty, are you still wondering if you should have had one of these put in when you did the loft?
Permissum nos persevero. Let us continue. Is there any sea thereabouts? No sea, you say? In nominee Patris, then use your imagination! A field will do right enough. Does it look like a great sweet mother to you? Finally, are you – and forgive me for asking because matters of faith are so touchy – a fearful Jesuit?
Hopefully, the literary among you will recognise this mish-mash of the opening lines of Ulysses whose 90th anniversary is celebrated today – Bloomsday – with a day-long broadcast and discussion on Radio 4 ("But first the news headlines: President Assad of Syria is a dirty, crumpled noserag – that's the view of senior figures at the UN-").
We may not have read the book, yet our copies of it follow us around from flat to flat, house to house, surviving clear-outs. We hang on to them, vowing that one day we will get past that "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan" of the opening. Every few years a new edition is published, with a fresh Introduction. Invariably, they've gone back to the original manuscript, correcting "accidentals" of punctuation. This presents great opportunities for school students. "Thank you for your essay, Jamie. It is with the British Museum's hieroglyphics department for analysis." "Ah, I know what you're referring to, Sir. Those strange marks are 'accidentals' of punctuation. Joyce used to use them all the time, but I expect you know that."
The word Joycean entered the language some time ago and can mean his experimental, stream-of-consciousness technique, or almost any modern literary device, such as those used by Jon McGregor in his Even the Dogs which won the £80,000 IMPAC Prize in – coincidentally – Dublin this week. But some might say it just means hard-going. I'll leave it to you to decide which applies to your own scribblings. Slainte!
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article