what possible book could be derived from Homer's Odyssey and the Dublin Street Directory for 1904

So it's precisely 105 years since the day on which it's set, and I've just finished Ulysses. Which in places is precisely as obscene and as incomprehensible and as up its own (and other) arses as the haters ever claimed - a particularly trying section for me being 'Sirens', which felt like trying to read a ringtone. But which is also so rich and so full and so alive. Whenever people bug me to write a novel, I tell them that I've only ever had two ideas for one, and I got beaten to them both. One was about a city in a state of existential collapse, citizens caught in the fall-out from a war they couldn't even comprehend - and just as I was starting to work out how that might play, three other people produced it (two of them called Jeff, which left me suspicious of Jeffs for a while). All very good, though, so if anything it just saved me some trouble. The other didn't even have a plot, so much as a style - the idea of a story which was perfectly in every moment, protean, shifting its form to follow the defining mood of each incident. Well, it turns out James Joyce beat me to it 55 years before I was even born, even if he left out the full-on action adventure chapter I think might have made it even more complete. I suppose in expressing the infinite richness of a single day, Ulysses might have inspired my favourite album ever, The Divine Comedy's Promenade, and that was always going to incline me in its favour. But still I thank heavens that I read it for pleasure rather than studying it. With something like this, or Gravity's Rainbow, I have to get into the flow of the prose, let it wash over me, appreciate it like music rather than trying to make sure I have the full measure of each individual word. If I'd run into it during my degree, I'd have managed maybe two chapters of notes, quit and bluffed, like I did with Henry James (to whom I've never returned). And I was going to say now that this was the last book I felt any obligation to read, that now I'm truly free...except I just caught sight of that copy of Don Quixote on the shelf. Not just yet, though, eh?
(I forget - has League of Extraordinary Gentlemen referenced Ulysses yet? If not, the obvious point of contact would be M'Intosh. We never do find out who he is, so I think maybe Quartermain)

Of course, because I had to finish this on Bloomsday, and didn't really want to get underway on any other big reads in the meantime, I was rather kicking around for shorter stuff to read these last few days, having got to the end of the penultimate chapter on Friday. So I very nearly finished Saturday's paper on Saturday, and have been getting through a lot of short stories, and yesterday I went to the park to read about two outsiders who rose to lead great empires - Benjamin Disraeli and Conan. Somehow I don't think those points in common would have seen them become great friends, though. Anyway, there was some canine event in the park, but I didn't notice any more dogs than usual - just bigger dogs. At least three which were bigger than most people I know, each of a different breed and each with a different owner. Also, I noticed grave goods. I'm used to floral tributes and pictures when someone has died young, but on a tree in the park it was instead a birthday of the deceased being marked, and as well as photos, notes and flowers, the friends had left vodka and Red Bull.

Primeval cancelled; should have known ITV wouldn't want to spoil their record by continuing to produce a decent show. You can't leave Danny Quinn stuck at the dawn of man, you sods!