Thanks! One for the Shopping List.

Randomly: I was somewhat disturbed, reading "A", to find him quoting from one of those compendia of dubious collective nouns (like "An Exaltation of Larks"). Remembering that spasm of snobbishness now, I'm inclined to give Z the benefit of the doubt -- as your comparison to Joyce suggests, anything and everything went into "A", not necessarily as an endorsed utterance of the author.

Scroggins's blog offers good reading as well.