We went back to Eskiltuna Flygplats for another Mälardalen Open, some more burnouts
Burnout, Mälardalen Open again
Neil Hopcroft
A digital misfit
Book review: The Blanket Cats
[Hardback, read aloud to Adelle]
The Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu is another charming Japanese fiction about therapeutic cats. The cats here are available for loan for three days to the residents of Tokyo and we have the stories of seven recipients of their therapy.
In contrast to We’ll prescribe you a cat, the stories here are more about the cats and their temporary owners and less about the clinic and the mystery surrounding it.
The stories themselves seem oddly incomplete, leaving the conclusion for you to fill in yourself, but in each case the cat in instrumental in a shift in perception that is set to improve the life of the recipient.
As with many Japanese cat books, there is a gentle humour here, and a reflection on some difficult situations in life. Not many of the stories speak directly to me, though, and it all seems a little distant.
Worth reading if you enjoyed We’ll prescribe you a cat.
Vaxholm Battery
On the North of Vaxholm are the ruins of an old battery, guarding Stockholm from invaders arriving by sea through the straights near Vaxholm.
North Vaxholm
We ventured to the north of the Vaxholm peninsular, where we found another secluded harbour area with views across the sea.
Fredriksborg ruin again
We took another trip to Fredriksborg ruin.
Siggesta Gård
We went to play minigolf at Siggesta Gård, and celebrated our survival with an ice cream catapillar.
Hiatus
It has been a tough few months, details of which I will omit from here. Suffice to say that the whirlwind is slowing and it is time to get back on the blogging horse.
I have nearly gotten to the end of the Sweden reposts, reliving those times has been both happy and sad, a window into brighter times in my life, I hope you have all enjoyed looking back too. There are still a few more weeks of those posts to come, if I can keep the momentum.
There are a number of book reviews coming up too, I don’t stop reading just because of tough times.
Another visit to Mariefred
We went to Mariefred again.
Book review: Incompetence by Rob Grant
[Paperback – borrowed]
Incompetence, Bad is the New Good, by Rob Grant
I was slightly disappointed to discover this was a work of fiction rather than a study of incompetence.
It is set in a near-future world where the European Union has turned into the United States of Europe and become overrun with red tape and underserved with competence.
In it we follow the attempts of secret agent Harry Salt to find the killer of his boss and main contact, Dick Klingferm, while he navigates a world where nothing works as it should. Things and systems are broken, people are either completely untrained for their job or unwilling to do it, mostly both.
It starts with incompetence coming thick and fast, after a while it seems to slow down. I don’t know if that was because it slowed in the writing or maybe I became inured to it. Much of it seemed like condensed versions of what we see in our everyday lives, where the systems breaking down are mostly the result of belief by management that it is cheaper to run things that way. Salt has to deal with things that have been like that for long enough that everyone has forgotten why the decision was made, he just sees total inability everywhere he looks.
Of course, he is the one functional person in his own narrative, so I wonder how much he has externalised, and perhaps the world is not quite as bad as it seems from his descriptions.
Overall, a fun book holding a depressing mirror up to show the logical conclusion of some of the worst decisions we could collectively make.
Fly’n’drive – funny cars
There were some Funny Cars at Fly’n’drive, for a brief drag car show.
