I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy.

Well, today is Bloom's Day, the annual celebration of James Joyce, named after his character Leopold Bloom of Ulysses fame. If you're in Dublin, as a couple of my readers are, you should be tracing the route he took today, from toilet to pub. I'm expecting to hear from Zoot Horn today, as he's Wolverhampton's - and thus the world's - premier Joyce expert.

Here's the opening line:

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

But it isn't nearly as evocative as the opening of Finnegans (or Finnegan's) Wake:

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.