Here’s something of an oddity where the twin interests of comix and Irish history meet. The 1916 Easter Rising that attempted to set Ireland free told as a graphic novel apparently – though only 48 pages long. The short graphic tale with the long title Blood Upon the Rose: Easter 1916: The Rebellion That Set Ireland Free covers the story from the early planning to the final executions and includes the tragic romance between Joseph Plunkett and Grace Gifford. A review is to be found here.

It’s all over now but I’ve book-marked it for study later – one womans attack on the great novel blogged for posterity in Who Says Pleasure Reading Can’t Be Masochistic?

You will know that our man with the pencils and paint Rob Berry has just got back from Paris. I’m sure he’ll be glad to know someone else beat him to the blog post! Nice pics too. Come-on Rob – this is the one to beat! Someone else on their travels gets closer to the great man and relates it to their own travel blog appropriately entitled Jacqueline’s Eurotrip: 2009 – it’s kinda cute and has pictures too! Hi Mom.

It seems that the horror that is the Irish-theme pub (that’s public house) is not a phenomena solely inflicted upon the English as found here in Florida – I must say I preferred the Saracen’s Head to Molly O’Grady’s but that’s another story completely!

Sometimes (most times) my Google alerts throw up stuff that has little or nothing to do James Joyce or Ulysses. James Joyce gets a mention in this blog post, but don’t think too much about that, there’s just something wild about this stream-of-consciousness with words and pictures that’s too good to miss – Joyce related or not!

Here’s another crazy one and a topic I spent too much time worrying about – internet search keywords. It might help if you know that Fabio Capello is the English national football team manager and that Germaine Greer is actually a centre-foward for the Hammers. OK, so that last one is a lie!

Some of you might have missed Ezra Pound’s Birthday last month – you could have at least sent a card (well, not in the UK obviously), but here’s your chance to atone. Five hundred words please on the link between Pound and Joyce – and NO copying!

Question: Is it true that at some point in the seventies, Goings On About Town used the listings for The Fantasticks to serialize James Joyce’s Ulysses? The answer is to be found here, though you’ll need to scroll down a bit to find it. Personally I go with the theory that they were “trying to communicate with the Russian herring fleet in code”.

Getting back to my painful reading of Ulysses I came across this blog post on how to be a less anxious reader which echoes my sentiments somewhat. You have to be generous up to a point and allow meaning to come. It’s the same with movies you’ll know if you’ve ever been sat next to the Spanish Inquisition “who’s that?”, “what’s happening?”, “where are they?” or my favourite “What happens in the end?” – just have some patience for cryin’ out loud and watch the frikkin’ movie!

Every cloud has a silver lining? Not a phrase I subscribe to but here is a jolly blogster blogging on that very theme. The amusing bit (to me anyway) comes at the end with the update on her progresss through the novel that is our subject. More annoying than amusing is the comment that follows, but then perhaps I just have a thing about being patronised. I may have to give up on that one soon.

An important public service announcement cum reminder now about being a) literate b) a comicbook fan c) being connected to the internet and most importantly d) having too much time on your hands – the comments at the end being particularly time-wasterly! If you don’t want to click on the link I’ll sum up – Buck Mulligan is a Skrull!

Of course we’ve already mentioned this, but you’ll forgive me for repeating it at least once! You will, won’t you? More links relevant and irrelevant next week.