Bloomsday Centenary: Well, Mrs Bloom finally read the book. Mind you, it did take her 100 years - but then she loves her bed - but sleep or no sleep, herself did read the entire volume, with no prompting from me.
She stopped betimes for a bit of a song, and lost her patience with the fancy words. I was pleased to oblige, with the words, I mean, although I can't claim to have known them all. Fierce clever chap that Joyce, probably too clever. Great man all the same.
Not that Madam Marion was alone in her reading, others also gave it a go. And what do you know, Molly's reading left that blackguard Blazes Boylan with some spare hours on his hands and he laced into a few pages, as did the Citizen. Good job too, he'd less time for spouting his racist abuse.
They've long since called each June 16th "Bloomsday". I'm flattered having all those wonderful Balloonatic actors, other performers and ordinary people dressing up and following my footsteps about the city. But this time, it was more than the Day of the Book; 2004 was the Year of the Book, for the people as much as the scholars.
I'd never regarded myself as a hero, just a God-fearing man, a husband, a father, a bit of a dreamer. Yet it seemed that the people back me for the heroics. Mr Joyce was tricky, lots of notions about himself, always looking for a loan, and uppity with it.
To top it all, didn't he leave Dublin as quick as a rat deserting a sinking ship? Me, I stayed behind, cooking for Molly and trying to make sense of life. Still, Mr Joyce made me famous, immortal even.
As for moping Stephen, I love him like a son, but he's hard work, forever whingeing. Aside from the Mother's death - he handled that badly - he's not yet tested by either life or love. Sad case, too many books, lives inside his head, doesn't wash enough either. Small wonder with my lemon soap I'm the people's choice.
The critics descended on the city in June for the 19th International James Joyce Symposium, which began back here in 1967. I was prepared to say a few words, but wasn't asked. Gerry O'Flaherty and Fritz Senn, decent men, spent six months on the wireless, talking their way through the book.
All the old songs were sung throughout the year. All the old walks walked. All the old theories aired, again. Poor old Paddy waked endlessly. The National Library, a place close to my heart, exhibited those expensively acquired Joyce manuscripts. Then there was the feeding of the masses. It seemed all the tribes of Israel congregated in what used to be Sackville Street to honour my breakfast rituals. Thought they might run short of kidneys. Terrible shame about Bewley's closing.
Eileen Battersby