Looking back: we would later find many car shows where these kinds of machines were on display
There was a time before cars were boxy but safe – here are some pictures of a few I’ve found in my exploration.
A time before boxy but safe
Neil Hopcroft
A digital misfit
Runestone in Helenelund
Looking back: this was the first of many runestones I found, it became a bit of a treasure hunt for me to find and photograph them.
There are a number of Rune Stones around the Stockholm area – one thing that A wants to do while she is here is to find some of them. This one I came across by accident and took a picture with the intention of finding someone who knew what it was.
There is a small informational plaque next to the stone, but that only has Swedish description so I was no wiser.
A walk around Helenelund
Looking back: The little roads were more prevalent in this area of northern Stockholm than elsewhere in the city. These roads are widely used by cyclists and walkers alike, and, at the right time of year, skiers.
If instead of walking toward the Galleria from my office you cross the E4 and railway line you find yourself in Helenelund, a residential district on the edge of Sollentuna, itself a suburb of Stockholm. Trains run from Helenelund to Central Station.
Kista Landing
Looking back: we spent a lot of time in Kista, being where I worked and where we lived for a good chunk of time we were in Sweden.
I arrived in Kista a couple of months back, I started a job on Torshamnsgatan in the tech district of Stockholm. Now I have some catching up to do to tell you about what I’ve found here.
Kista (pronounced ‘Shiister’) is a relatively new district, built over the last 40 years or so, home to much of the technology research and development in Stockholm. You might be forgiven for thinking the whole place was owned by Ericsson, but there are many other companies here.
Sollentuna bound
Looking back: we were later to become very familiar with Sollentuna, living there for our last months in Sweden – Sollentuna Centrum would become our local shopping centre after its refurbishment.
We walked over the bridge from our flat in Akalla, heading toward Sollentuna Centrum. There’s an industrial/commercial area on the way, we passed a number of car dealerships and tech offices, Sun, Grundig, LG & Microsoft.
Beyond these there’s the main junction with the E4, the main road north from Stockholm, we found the border between Stockholms Kommun and Sollentuna Kommun.
Entering Sollentuna itself we encountered what appeared as if it should be a shopping centre, but without any shops in – there was a row of blocks of flats with shops underneath them, but it was not like the centre we were expecting to find.
We went around the block where we found the station – and decided it might be worth a look on the other side on the offchance there might be more of the centre there. We discovered a building marked ‘Sollentuna Centrum’ so that seemed like a good place to look for lunch. No joy. Its just a small building containing a few shops. Just across the way theres another building that looks rather like a car park, which, it turns out, contains a more significant shopping experience. Unfortunately we were there around 4:30 so all of the food shops were closing so we had to opt for a kebab at the one place that still looked open.
Book review: The Last London by Iain Sinclair
The Last London [Read aloud to Adelle]
I got this book because we were reading London Orbital, Sinclairs book about a walk around London in the acoustic footprint of the M25 and didn’t want it to finish. More about that book later. This was a tricky read, with complex sentences that didn’t come out in one breathe. His writing style is intense, with many observations on people and things he encountered on his walks.
The majority of the book revolves around his locality in Haggerstone, spiralling outwards to eventually end up recreating a force march to the battle of Hastings with a parade of misfits lead by an unattached bride. This is a political discourse on the turmoil of Brexit, both before and after, an observation of the schisms in the mentality of the country.
I knew a surprising number of the places through which the recorded walks passed, and was offered a view different from those I have seen during my own ambling, with a peak into the ancient or, more often recent history, of places.
One such place I didn’t know about was Mortimer Road, home of The Mole Man of Hackney, a mere couple of miles from my first flat in London, where an eccentric Irishman burrowed an extensive network of tunnels. Karen Russo said the Mole Man proved to be extraordinarily difficult to work with, and we are left with only a few pictures of the contents of his tunnelling.
London Orbital was where it started, this was a book I read not long after it came out at the beginning of the century. It captured a time in my life when the orbital was central, when discovery of things off the tarmac was a view into a world that was not there, that did not exist because you join, you drive, find your junction and leave. There is something in all those miles in between. And, for the most part, it is asylums or plague hospitals, places to put the unseen of Victorian society so they remain unseen. And they remain unseen, for different reasons now.
I read this book to Adelle too, and was reminded of the hopeful future that pervaded my life at the time of my own escape from the gravitational capture of the capital. It is a book of its time, a time now passed, making it a history of sorts, I am pleased to note that there is a 20 year celebration on film.
Wanderlust makes me consider other walks that could yield similar works, but my control of the language falls far short of that in these books. The A14 was an obvious candidate, at one point, now there is more appeal to the liminal nature of the north Norfolk coastal path.
Three score years, less six
Stirred to action by unnerving changes to Facebook acceptable speech policy, something I have been meaning to do for a while is to take up blogging again. This is something that happens from time to time, and something which I miss from the old Livejournal days – I don’t kid myself I can generate the kind of community we had in those days, nor am I going to kick myself if it doesn’t last long this time around either.
This will be a two-pronged approach, firstly to start writing here again, secondly to link to posts made here from platforms where ‘my people’ are found, be that Facebook or Bluesky or other places as and when they are invented. For what it is worth I am @neilhopcroft.com on Bluesky, and @neilhopcroft on mastodon.social, follow me, or not.
The content I aim to post here will cover a few topics, not least of which is some attempt at recovery of my mental health from its current ragged state. I will also touch on technology, politics, economics, rhetoric, diesel traction, book reviews and various other themes, as I see fit.
My old blog from our travels to Stockholm will also see a refresh and repost here, remastering, if it were a record, presented in all its original naïve glory but with bigger brighter pictures, improved grammar and a search button that works.
Racing
Mother and son chased each other around the lake.
Dr Syntax Head
We had to visit the curiously named Dr Syntax Head.
Nils sailing
It was the first time for Nils to go sailing at his mums sailing club.