My friend Robin has just published a book about portrait photography. I missed the launch party last week so I haven't actually seen or read it yet, but I know it will be good. Robin is a lecturer in photography, and I've met many of his students over the years. Without exception they have enormous respect and affection for him. I can understand that, because his enthusiasm for his subject is infectious, and he's a very fine photographer himself. The cover pic is of the Edinburgh blues singer Tam White.


Bloomsday - 100 years on
I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

The final words from Molly Bloom's soliloquy at the end of James Joyce's Ulysses. 8 sentences spread over 40 pages, and one of the great pieces of modern erotic fiction.