Bloomsday

I read somewhere that researchers had worked out that, based on a survey of office workers, the most depressing time of the week is around quarter to twelve on a Tuesday morning. The reasoning being that all the relaxation, if any, from the weekend would have worn off, any kind of funny stories from the weekend would already be kind of old news and it would still be a long time before the next weekend. Also, apparently, it's around that time that people realise just how much work is still left to do through the week.

We all got free tissues and handwash at work this morning to safeguard against this swine flu thing that's going around. Mostly it was another really dull day. I got home at around six o'clock.

Today is also Bloomsday in Ireland. Bloomsday is a celebration of the James Joyce novel Ulysses which is held every year in Dublin on the 16 June (the novel is set on the 16 June 1904). The book is basically about a man named Leopold Bloom (hence the name Bloomsday) who spends a day walking around Dublin. Basically people dress up in period costume and walk around Dublin, following the route the guy takes in the book, and they recite passages from the novel and act out scenes from it, and the day often ends with a party in the evening. I was in Dublin once on Bloomsday and I saw the people in Edwardian costume walking the streets eating cheese and drinking burgundy wine. Ulysses is really big in Dublin. They've got statues to celebrate the book and plaques marking where important events in the novel take place. This is despite the fact that the book is famously difficult to read (I've tried a number of times and never managed to get more than halfway through it).