You'll Never Beat The Irish

I am not entirely sure what is going on here, I don't reckon this is actually an Irish junior school.  I got Ireland in the Euro 2012 draw at work though, I'm just grateful I didn't get England.

[Quick bit of interwebnet research] This is a video made by the Good Child Foundation in Thailand, a charity who work towards inclusive education for Down's Syndrome children.

Goodchild Foundation

Book Review : Ulysses - James Joyce 2*



Image via Wikipedia

I realise that Joyce's stream of consciousness work is endlessly inventive and clever, displaying a dazzling use of language and a lack of repetition which is quite incredible for a a book of its size and length.  However, call me an old traditionalist if you will, but I would have sacrificed several hundred pages of bizarre literary ramblings for anything bearing a resemblance to a coherent narrative.  Ulysses took me almost six weeks to read, in stages as I could not stand the though of grinding through more than a handful of pages each day.

David Punter, English Professor at Bristol University describes Ulysses as "one of the most extraordinary works of literature in English."  Punter goes on to praise the manner in which Joyce performs "an exploration of the inner workings of the mind" and Joyce's replication of random thought processes.  I can see all this, and I do admire it in a way as being original, groundbreaking and inflammatory.  For myself though, none of these things made Ulysses into an interesting or compelling read.