I had read this many many years ago, on a train from Tuscany to Calais in the days before the Channel Tunnel (either in 1989 or in 1990). Since then I've got much more into modernist literature, which I think meant that I got a lot more out of it. It's still necessary to have some notes to hand to explain just what the heck is going on, and perhaps that's a problem in taking it as a novel rather than a textbook. But I found I enjoyed it more, and I think not only because I am twice as old now as I was the previous time.

Some particular highlights: I love the Scylla and Charybdis scene in the National Library, partly because I have spent time there myself, and I've also handled letters from Richard Best (who famously told the BBC years later that he was a real person, not a character in some dirty book). I had forgotten how brutal the depiction of the Citizen in the Cyclops episode is, especially bearing in mind that the basis of the character is Michael Cusack. And I'd forgotten how lyrical and sexy Molly Bloom's soliloquy is at the end (I guess when I was reading it the first time I had been on a train all night, and had stopped concentrating). On the other hand, I found the Wandering Rocks and Sirens episodes boring and confusing, and the Oxen of the Sun episode doesn't quite deliver (ho, ho) on its promise.

My doctoral thesis was on Irish scientists of the 1890-1930 period, which of course Ulysses fits into very nicely. I was struck by just how often astronomy and astronomers are invoked – Sir Robert Ball, who I once wrote an essay about, actually appears in person in a dream sequence, and his books are mentioned several times, as is his successor in Dunsink, Charles J Joly. (I have even been invoked by Joyce scholars.) I don't think Joyce is making any grand points about literature and science; it's just that astronomy was an important part of popular culture, then as now.

It's also interesting just how long a shadow the May 1882 Phoenix Park murders cast over the story. Joyce would have been three months old at the time, and can therefore have had no personal memory of the events, but I guess for the generation who grew up in Ireland between then and 1916 it was their JFK moment – complete with conspiracy theories, and with the extra thrill of surviving, identifiable, well-known accomplices to the assassination.

Anyway, I shall probably read it again, and maybe I won't leave it another quarter of a century to do so.

A few weeks ago I was in Zürich, and I made the pilgrimage up the hill to the cemetery beside the zoo, where Joyce rests for eternity, and in a nice bit of reflexivity, can be seen casting a glance on his own grave as a thought strikes him while reading.

There are worse fates.

• The curious truth about belly button fluff
  
  In case you were wondering.
  (tags: biology )

We're now at the halfway point between my previous survey of bloggers' voting intentions for the Hugo fiction categories, and the actual deadline for votes on 31 July. Quite a lot more prople have come forward to say how they plan to vote, and it shifts the balance in a couple of cases. Apologies to anyone who I have missed; at this rate, I expect that I will do a final roundup in two weeks, though I can't promise that it will be before the voting deadline has passed.

Again, I want to emphasise that this is a small self-selecting sample of voters. When I first carried out a survey like this in 2011, it did not flag any of the eventual winners as leading among bloggers. In 2013, I did not find a single blogger who declared that they had voted for the winner, Redshirts. I did better last year, with the winners either top or second in each of the categories surveyed.

The headline for today is that The Goblin Emperor is a nose ahead of of The Three Body Problem for Best Novel among those I have surveyed, with Ancillary Sword so close behind that it would be very foolish to call the outcome on the basis of these numbers. (Chaos Horizon thinks the relative probabilities of these three winning are in the opposite oreder to my survey; they may well be right.) In the short fiction categories, No Award has extended its lead in all three cases to the point where I feel comfortable describing it as the front-runner.

Best Novel: I've added another 15 bloggers and blog comments to the previous 17, for a total of 32, and the result is to boost The Goblin Emperor into first place, with The Three-Body Problem very close behind and Ancillary Sword still within spitting distance. I also record the first vote I have found for No Award in this category. There is still nobody claiming that they will vote for The Dark Between the Stars. I repeat my caveat that Skin Game's supporters may not be fervent bloggers. Those in my previous survey are in blue; new additions to the list should be in red.

The Goblin Emperor (10½): Ian Mond, Tim Atkinson, Reading SFF, Rachel Neumeier, maybe Cat FaberJon F. Zeigler, Admiral Naismith, Charles Stross, Martin Wisse, Laura Gjovaag, NiTessine

The Three-Body Problem (10): Wombat-Socho, Vox Day, H.P., Bradley Armstrong, Joseph Tomaras, Nick Mamatas, Brian ZKat Jones, Andrew Hickey, Harold Carper

Ancillary Sword (8½): Steve Davidson, Nicholas Whyte, John Snead, Lisa Goldstein, maybe Cat FaberTimo Pietilä, Joe Sherry, Bonnie McDaniel, Rhiannon Thomas

Skin Game (1): Patrick May

No Award (1): Michael Z. Williamson

Best Novella: 11 new bloggers to add to the previous 19, for a total of 30, and more than half of them are supporting No Award in this category. "Big Boys Don't Cry" is in joint second place with "One Bright Star To Guide Them". There is one voter who thinks she might vote for "The Plural of Helen of Troy". Those in my previous survey are in blue; new additions to the list should be in red.

No Award (17½): Joseph Tomaras, Steve Davidson, Nicholas Whyte, Timo Pietila, Melina Dahms, Font Folly, Abigail Nussbaum, Laura Gjovaag, Marion, Lisa Goldstein, Cat FaberJon F. Zeigler, Kat Jones, ase, Michael Z. Williamson, NiTessine, Bonnie McDaniel, possibly Alex Pierce

"Big Boys Don't Cry" (4): Chris Gerrib, Peter Enyeart, Brian ZHarold Carper

"One Bright Star To Guide Them" (4): Vox Day, Nick MamatasRich Horton, Mark Ciocco

"Pale Realms of Shade" (3): Rachel Neumeier, Joe Sherry H.P.

"Flow" (1): Patrick May.

"The Plural of Helen of Troy" (½): possibly Alex Pierce

Best Novelette: With 9 more votes surveyed, making a total of 32, No Award has pulled sufficiently far in front of a fractured field that I think I can call it the definite leader now. "The Triple Sun" and "The Day The World Turned Upside Down" are effectively level for second place, but "The Journeyman: In The Stone House" and "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium" are not far behind either. Still nobody who admits voting for "Championship B'Tok". Those in my previous survey are in blue; new additions to the list should be in red.

No Award (14): Andrew Hickey, Kat Jones, Nicholas Whyte, Melina Dahms, Timo Pietilä, Laura Gjovaag, Abigail Nussbaum, Brian Z, Lisa Goldstein, Cat Faber and Steve Davidsonase (probably), Michael Z. Williamson, Alex Pierce

"The Triple Sun" (6½): Kiesa, Rachel Neumeier, Mark Ciocco, Joe Sherry, Joseph Tomaras, Peter Enyeart maybe MarionJon F. Zeigler

"The Day The World Turned Upside Down" (5½): Font Folly, Russell Blackford, Chris Gerrib, maybe MarionCharlotte Ashley.

"The Journeyman: In The Stone House" (3): Patrick MayH.P., Rich Horton

"Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium" (3): Nick MamatasBonnie McDaniel, Harold Carper (probably)

Best Short Story: Another 10 votes here, taking to total to 35, and even more so than with Best Novelette, No Award has now pulled far enough ahead of the field to be declared the clear front-runner with more than half the votes and more than twice as many as "Totaled", its nearest rival. The surprise development here is that while I found nobody supporting "A Single Samurai" in my previous survey, this time round I picked up two or three (one of which was a post written some time ago). Nobody has yet declared that their first preference will go to "The Parliament of Beasts and Birds". Those in my previous survey are in blue; new additions to the list should be in red.

No Award (20): Andrew Hickey, Katya Czaja, Timo Pietilä, Melina Dahms, Martin Petto, Nicholas Whyte, Steve Davidson, Font Folly, Abigail Nussbaum, Laura Gjovaag, Nick Mamatas, Brian Z, Lisa Goldstein, Cat FaberKat Jones, Aaron Pound, ase (almost certainly), Michael Z. Williamson, Alex Pierce, Bonnie McDaniel

"Totaled" (9): Mark Ciocco, Liz Barr, Chris Gerrib, Rachel Neumeier, Patrick May, Joseph Tomaras, Russell Blackford, Peter EnyeartJon F. Zeigler

"A Single Samurai" (2½): H.P., Rich Horton, possibly Harold Carper

"Turncoat" (2½): Vox Day, Vivienne Raperpossibly Harold Carper

"On a Spiritual Plain" (1): Joe Sherry.

Please let me know if I have misrepresented your vote, or misused your preferred online handle, in the list above. And please point me to other lists; as I said, I hope to do one more update post, though it may be after the voting deadline on 31 July.

• Estonia 100 square kilometers larger than thought
  
  Where’s my country? Oh, there it is.
  (tags: estonia maps )

• #ThisWasNotACoup
  
  Perspective.
  (tags: eu greece )
• A Greek Farce, Then Gloom
  
  Ivan is not optimistic.
  (tags: eu greece )

Current
Watership Down, by Richard Adams (a chapter a week)
The Sorrows of an American, by Siri Hustvedt
Kushiel’s Mercy, by Jacqueline Carey
Doctor Who and the Vortex Crystal by William H. Keith, Jr.

Last books finished
The True Deceiver, by Tove Jansson
Ghost Devices, by Simon Bucher-Jones
Ulysses, by James Joyce

Next books
City at the End of Time, by Greg Bear
A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick

Books acquired in last week
A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Road to Faërie, by Verlyn Flieger

• The Egg Master
  
  Hee! Also, yuck.
  (tags: cooking funny )

• The Winning Serve: What Not To Do at a Summer ‘Networking Event’
  
  Also, what *to* do.
  (tags: networking )
• Lego Tries to Build a Better Brick
  
  Switching from fossil fuels.
  (tags: climatechange )

• The Wetsuitman
  
  Extraordinary story of British migration policy killing people.
  (tags: norway death netherlands migration )
• This is What We’ve Learned About Pluto in the Past 24 Hours
  
  Wow.
  (tags: astronomy )
• The most powerful person you’ve never heard of
  
  Secreta of British governance.
  (tags: ukpolitics )
• The 20% Strategy (PDF)
  
  Building a core vote for the Lib Dems
  (tags: ukpolitics libdems )
• Number 10 ‘can square’ boundary reform losers
  
  House of Commons to go down to 600 seats.
  (tags: ukpolitics )

• Tales from the Coffeeshop
  
  A particularly good column this week.
  (tags: cyprus )
• The new Conservatism
  
  The Economist on Osborne: “often wrong and sometimes dangerous”.
  (tags: ukpolitics )
• Four Ways Ukraine Isn’t Greece
  
  Important differences.
  (tags: ukraine greece )
• The Death of Reddit
  
  Not my fight, but interesting on managing online communities.
  (tags: internet )

Shortly after I made my previous post about the Lib Dem leadership election, I got invited to a lunch with Norman Lamb in Brussels last Friday. As I wrote last weekend, I knew very little about Norman Lamb, except that he had been a minister in the coalition government and that he had the backing of a number of party heavyweights – though only one of the other surviving MPs (Farron has three other MPs supporting him, with Clegg and Carmichael silent as far as I can tell). So I went along, with my ballot paper in my pocket and an open mind, ready to change my #1 Farron vote if I was sufficiently convinced.

The discussion was a private one among a group of about twenty, most of them Lib Dem members based in Brussels, and concentrated entirely on policy; the leadership campaign was barely mentioned. I was impressed despite myself. As various friends who are more involved than I am have reported, Lamb is clearly cerebral and reflective, and wants to get the best information available from many different sources. He did not pitch us; he asked for our views (which I gave at some length, though he was nice about it afterwards).

So I ended the meeting reassured on substance at least, if Lamb rather than Farron is elected on Wednesday. However, my prejudice on style was reinforced: Farron speaks from the heart, Lamb from the head. At this point, I think the party needs passion as well as reflection. If the party ends up with Farron as leader and Lamb as spokesman on EU policy, there may be some hope of that. So I dropped my vote unchanged into the postbox on Rue de Treves as I walked back to my office.

• Giant smelly plant in Cambridge set to bloom for first time in a decade
  
  Hooray!
  (tags: biology cambridge )

• New states in the EU?
  
  Report from Barcelona meeting.
  (tags: catalonia eu )
• Why The World Might Be Running Out Of Cocoa Farmers
  
  The dark side.
  (tags: economics development )
• How Climate Scientists Feel
  
  Very pessimistic.
  (tags: climatechange )
• Why we sleep
  
  Refreshing the mind.
  (tags: biology )

I find it generally difficult to write up short story collections here; I don't find it satisfactory to either list them all in exhaustive detail, or to concentrate on a few outstanding pieces, disregarding the rest. The most satisfying ones for blogging purposes are those with a unifying theme, preferably by a single author, and this collection of autobiographical snippets by one of my favourite writers ticked all of my boxes.

This was familiar territory – more than half of the autobiographical short stories and vignettes in Sculptor's Daughter are also in A Winter Book, but here there's a more systematic narrative of childhood, of a girl maybe around seven or nine years old growing up in an artistic household, in Helsinki in the 1920s. Some bits really stood out – her relationship with the household staff, her exploration of the countryside on her own, the grown-up political talk (with the recent horrible civil war an unspoken background), all built up parts of the bigger picture.

It's a very short book – 160 pages – and Moomin fans can safely try it as a sampler for Jansson's adult work. But it will also enlighten anyone interested in how European history was lived in small traumatised countries in the third decade of the last century, from the perspective of a child then looking back in later years.

Is Maisie Williams playing Susan???

• Your next selfie could be your last, Russia warns
  
  Consumer safety!
  (tags: russia photos )
• The Big Idea Theory
  
  How to get inspired, by my colleague @jansedd.
  (tags: writing )
• Expat families torn apart by UK visa requirements
  
  @telegraph scores again on its home territory.
  (tags: migration ukpolitics )
• Michael Gove and the Lawyers’ Revolt
  
  Cruel incompetence.
  (tags: ukpolitics )
• European Parlt targets online platforms
  
  No change to Freedom of Panorama.
  (tags: eu copyright )

Current
Watership Down, by Richard Adams (a chapter a week)
Ulysses, by James Joyce

Last books finished
Killing Ground, by Steve Lyons
The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton
Splintered Light: Tolkien's World, by Verlyn Flieger
Halflife, by Mark Michalowski

Next books
The True Deceiver, by Tove Jansson
The Sorrows of an American, by Siri Hustvedt
Ghost Devices, by Simon Bucher-Jones

Books acquired in last week
Splintered Light: Tolkien's World, by Verlyn Flieger

• How to Leave the Euro More or Less Legally
  
  Andrew Duff finds a way.
  (tags: eu greece )
• On countries without currencies
  
  Pete finds a way too.
  (tags: eu greece )

Some time in the last year I read a novel in which the protagonist tried to read this, and bounced off it. (I'm having trouble identifying which novel – a search of my electronic copies of likely suspects The Fat Years and The Three-Body Problem doesn't pull it up, so it must have been something else, possibly a Clarke submission.) I winced a little when I came across that reference – the group of friends with whom I read War and Peace in 2012 and Anna Karenina more recently had also tried The Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a collective reading project in 2013, and we ran into the sand pretty quickly. For those who don't know China or Chinese history, the names of people and places are pretty baffling; and the plot seemed to be epic politics and war, with few female perspectives and none at all from outside the ruling elites, and not a lot of characterisation.

But I gave it another try, this time curbing my ambition and going only for the abridged University of California Press edition translated and edited by Moss Roberts, which cuts out about half of the material. I found this more digestible, though I still felt the need of maps to explain where the three contested kingdoms were in relation to any geography that I am familiar with. The main strand of narrative of the book is the rise to power of Cao Cao to displace the authority of the Han dynasty emperor (in the late second century of our era), but his power is restricted to the northern kingdom of Wei; after his death, his sons actually displace the Han heir from the throne, but their rule declines and eventually ends (in the mid-third century of our era). Wu and Shu, the other two kingdoms which have split off from the Han realm, alternatively fight Cao Cao and each other, but the core narrative seems to me to be in the north. It's a detailed study of the use and abuse of military and political power, drawing on Chinese philosophy and Sun Tsu (who is repeatedly quoted, with approval), and the moral we are supposed to draw is taht integration must follow disintegration. I didn't feel equipped to engage with it as I would have liked, because of my lack of familiarity with the core material. I think there may be a market for a Three Kingdoms for Dummies edition, with maps and family trees.

One thing that struck me, both on this reading and my previous effort, was the role of magic and especially ghosts in the story. The unjustly executed become unquiet dead, haunting those who persecuted them, often with direct physical consequences, such as frightening generals and kigns to death. I don't think this makes the story a fantasy any more than the Lovejoy books are fantasy due to their protagonst's supernatural ability to detect antiques – rather less so, if anything, given that it's presented as a normal part of the world of the Three Kingdoms, but it's worth noting.

• Siderea Reads Watership Down: El-ahrairah to His Warren (Part 1)
  
  First of two excellent pieces.
  (tags: sf )
• Siderea Reads Watership Down: The First Sixty-Five Pages (Part 2)
  
  Second excellent piece in what I hope will be a good series.
  (tags: sf )
• U.N. digital privacy investigator: Estonian is passed over
  
  Maltese candidate wins.
  (tags: privacy internet un )
• The future is here! Buy a fully working Star Trek Communicator
  
  A snip at $149.95!
  (tags: sf )
• When extreme circumstances warrant setting up a lender of last resort within a larger currency union
  
  Irish banking history note.
  (tags: ireland ukpolitics history economics )
• What About Nuclear Power Isn’t Good?
  
  Strong arguments.
  (tags: environment nuclearpower )

I wrote this on Sunday, the day of the Greek referendum, when it seemed appropriate to write up a work of classical literature, claimed by some as the first ever science fiction novel. Indeed, it does start rather well, with our hero unwittingly drawn to the Moon where he finds himself embroiled in a space war between the inhabitants of the Moon and the Sun over the colonisation of Venus (strictly Ἑωσφόρος, Lucifer) which seems very close to much more recent tropes of sf narrative. But apart from that particular shaft of forward thinking, it's a fairly standard odyssey tale of going to strange places, seeing strange things and meeting strange people, and I think it is better to let classical scholars hang onto it as a mildly imaginative outlier in classical literature than for sf fans to spuriously (and unnecessarily) claim classical legitimacy for the genre starting here.

• How the 2004 Olympics Triggered Greece’s Decline
  
  Article from 2012.
  (tags: greece )
• European liberal parties don’t alternate between governments of left and right anymore
  
  Good point.
  (tags: politics )
• Minister No More!
  
  Varoufakis out!
  (tags: greece )
• the European Parliament’s panorama drama
  
  Inside the debate.
  (tags: eu copyright )

This was a best-seller back in 1974, and boy does it feel like it. Sherlock Holmes is lured to Vienna by Watson in order to get treatment for his cocaine addiction at the hands of Sigmund Freud; together they solve the mystery of a lost heiress and prevent Europe from falling into war before its time. There is a thrilling chase sequence on two steam trains across Austria. That's about it, really; every generation updates Holmes for its own age, perhaps, and this was the 1970s version. I'll stick with Cumberbatch, Freeman, Gatiss and Moffatt.

• Was a shadowy lobby behind the attack on freedom of panorama?
  
  The truth is more worrying!
  (tags: eu freespeech )
• Tim Farron calls for UK to let in 60,000 migrants
  
  Telling it like it is.
  (tags: ukpolitics eu migration )
• How Britain and the US decided to abandon Srebrenica to its fate
  
  Lest we forget.
  (tags: bosnia )

I wasn’t hugely impressed by this novel of an activist struggling with emotion and revolution in 1980s Namibia. As with Doris Lessing, I found myself not terribly interested in the problems of white people trying to make sense of African society; it feels like it’s all about them. I have a feeling I got this after it was highly recommended by someone, but I can’t remember who.

As you may remember, I left the Liberal Democrats (of which I was a founding member back in 1988) a few years back. I was angry about the so-called welfare reforms, started by Labour and continued by the Conservatives, which the Lib Dems in government colluded with, in some cases with unseemly glee. Any notion of a war on poverty and disability seems to have been transformed into a war on the poor and disabled, and the families of the disabled; and not enough of the Lib Dems were audible on the right side of the debate for me to continue feeling comfortable. I am fortunate enough to live in a country with a real welfare state. I pay huge amounts of tax, and I get every euro-cent of it back one way or the other. But people here retain confidence in the system as a back-stop for everyone.

I was angry also that two significant constitutional reforms, electoral reform and reforming the House of Lords, were comprehensively botched. The AV referendum was a stupid idea for anyone who actually wanted change in the system. On the House of Lords I recognise that I'm an outlier anyway, in that I'd prefer to abolish it than make it an elected body, but the actual plan proposed was massively silly and would actually have increased the percentage of bishops among members. It was right that it failed and wrong to propose it.

I remain angry about both of those sets of issues, and the party deserved the kicking it got in retribution from voters. There was no alternative to coalition with the Conservatives – Labour had neither the necessary numbers nor any serious intention of making it work – and the party was right to do it but wrong in the way that it was done. The rot set in early, with the debacle over university tuition fees (which in fairness was more a question of presentation, but a catastrophic failure in that regard), and it was never stopped. I do not say this with any joy. I feel sorry particularly for the ten MEPs who lost their seats (or in a couple of cases stood down pre-emptively) in last year's election. I know almost all of them personally, and they were tremendous contributors to the European Parliament, for the party, for the UK and Europe. They paid the price for other people's decisions.

It would be better for the UK if there was a stronger voice for liberalism which actually believes in the sorts of things I believe in, and doesn't screw up when in government. The two lasting public policy changes forced on the coalition by the Lib Dems, equal marriage and (more wonkishly) fixed-term parliaments, are very good things; and the Lib dems did stand up against the loopy anti-immigration policies of both Conservatives and Labour. My feeling was that if the Lib Dems stopped colluding with government policies I find disgusting and started sounding a bit more effective, I might give them another try.

In anticipation of this, I kicked in £20 to a party fund-raising appeal during the election campaign. The premise was rather silly; it was to enter a draw for a dinner with John Cleese. It was also fairly early in the campaign, so of course meant that having paid once, I got further despairing appeals for funds as the campaign went on. I'm in political communications myself, so I smiled and then ignored them. Rather to my dismay, one thickish envelope arrived by snail-mail, labelling itself a membership pack. I hadn't rejoined; I'd just made a small donation. So I binned it.

When the exit poll was handed to me in the TV studio in Belfast at twenty to ten on election night, my first reaction was that 10 seats might be an over-statement and we could well see the Lib Dems level-pegging with the DUP. Fortunately for me, I said so on camera, so my reputation for predictive power is maintained. Unfortunately for the party and (on reflection) for the UK, I was right. As the Lib Dem seats tumbled in all directions, I watched with some anxiety for the fate of one old friend in particular.

In roughly 1988-1991, which a brief spasm again in the mid-1990s, I was active in student politics with the Lib Dems, and became briefly a large fish in that rather small pool. Way back then, Tim Farron, who is three years, a month and a day younger than me, was already someone to watch. We were both involved in a certain number of political battles which seemed awfully important at the time but whose details have mercifully faded from memory. What I do recall is that when Tim and I differed politically, he usually won; and on reflection, that was usually because he was right and I was wrong.

Watching from afar, I had supported his candidacy for President of the party, and appreciated that he was on occasion prepared to vote against the government, notably on tuition fees at the beginning, and continued to keep up the pressure, including on immigration. Some complained that he had not taken responsibility by accepting a government position; frankly that doesn't look to me like a stupid move at all, in the light of the performance of the party in government. When it became clear that the choice of new leader would be between Tim and another candidate who had held office in the coalition government, and who had emerged since I moved away from the UK in 1997, I resolved privately that I would rejoin the party if and when Tim got elected.

Well, the decision has been partly thrust into my hands. Because the party has chosen to treat my £20 as a membership renewal rather than a one-off donation, a membership ballot arrived the other day. And although I feel it's frankly sneaky of the party to count me among its (supposedly burgeoning) numbers before I had really decided on that for myself, I will fill in the form and send it back for Tim. Whether I renew again next year depends on what he does with the leadership once he gets it, as it seems likely that he will. Good luck to him.

• A decade of overspending: how Greece plunged into economic crisis
  
  Some numbers.
  (tags: greece )
• Syriza has hardly covered itself in glory either
  
  Some recent history.
  (tags: greece )
• The meaning of a referendum: Austerity and sovereignty
  
  Greece and Puerto Rico – what’s the difference? Daniel explains.
  (tags: greece puertorico )