Or not. It IS December and it is down to that fact that I put the case that no one has said anything remotely interesting about James Joyce this week. I think everyone including my good self deserves a break and it is rather the time to be thinking about how better you might have spent 2009. You’ll never see it again!

So not wanting to disturb your noses from a warm blanket and a good book I’ll leave you for this week with this little poke from the Mother Country and a reminder if need be of why Joyce was an exile. You must see that if he loved Dublin so much he might actually have stayed in it! You’ll no doubt have heard this criticism from The Irish Times before, but it bares thinking about. There is another criticism to be found within this short blog post from Patti Abbott since I would reject any notion of my being a fan of anything!

So we find ourselves short on interest and praise leaving criticism to fill the vacuum. One reading group blog simply states “Books Abandoned: Ulysses by James Joyce” … ! I won’t name names.

Okay just so you don’t think I’m just being miserable (though I can be the ghost of Scrooge at this time of year) – Christina Squitieri has been enjoying Ulysses – quite a lot.