I'm trying to use system.lisp as the hook into writing code that reads command line parameters and does stuff - to use abcl for scripting. 

The problem is that debugging it is ... uncomfortable... , because

(handler-case 

    (require 'system)

  (t ()))

Means that any error just stops what's happening.

How can I establish that my code running as called from system.lisp runs in a normal debugging environment? 

Thanks,

Alan