I worked on my blogs from seven until midday. Indeed I have been working on nothing else all week. I say all week but it has actually been half a week as I returned from Ljusterö late on Tuesday night on the 1935 Vaxholmsbolaget boat from Väsbystrand on the north of the island. In fact I got ahead of myself with draft content in place all the way through next weekend. Last time I did this I threw most of it away but perhaps my luck will be better second time around. My problem was to find an elegant…and seemingly casual…way to integrate Anna Lindh Dossier material.

Swedes appreciate the benefits of paying taxes more than most. It helps to have an efficient Public Sector and a Neutrality Policy so not much is squandered on the military. Most discussions about taxes pass through the Smoke and Mirrors department. Margaret Thatcher’s failed attempt to dismantle the public sector had more to do with destroying Trade Union Power than reducing taxes. But the dead hand of government rhetoric went down well with the tax-paying middle classes. The poor have no money and the rich pay to avoid taxes. The Thatcher Legacy is Chronic Centralisation and Administrative Directives instead of Local Democracy. I wonder if she realises.

In England in the 1920s C.H.Douglas…and when will the Social Creditors airbrush out the moustache and drop the Major from his name...would patiently explain to anyone willing to listen that the conventional wisdom about Banks & Taxes was incorrect. The state does not pay its bills from taxes and there is neither rhyme nor reason for so convoluted a financial system…though the myths serve certain interests extremely well. But I will leave Social Credit and the Two Acres and A Pig Policy of the Distributists for another day.

I returned to England from America at record speed on 19th October 1987 riding on the coat-tails of the Great Storm. It cut an hour off my 7-hour flight across the North Atlantic from Boston’s Logan Airport. In Kent and Sussex trees were scattered like matchsticks. In Castle Woods and Oxleas Woods behind Crookston Road where my mother lived 200-year old oak trees were ripped from the ground. And here is an eye witness account from the West Country.

‘I remember waking up in the middle of the night and calling my mum because I thought there were burglars in the roof. She told me that there was a bit of a storm and that's what I could hear. It turned out that so many roof-tiles had been ripped off in the storm that it was my old tricycle rolling up and down the loft in the wind. Our neighbour's car was lying under a tree outside our front door. Mum and dad watched the back garden fence and gate fly around and trap the cat. They couldn't get to rescue her with the wind blowing so a rescue effort was launched in the morning!’

Once the dust had settled and the country got back to normal the City of London started flogging off State Enterprises to the People. Mixed in among the telephones and water was the Channel Tunnel. As this megaproject was all my fault…for bringing it to the attention of all those Cambridge Engineers in high places…I thought the least I could do was to buy some shares and get myself free trips to Paris.

So I sent off for the six-inch high stack of documents and spent two days wading through them. My conclusion was that the French had it right and the Thatcher Government was selling a very expensive Pig-in-the-Poke to the English...and I once prepared these dossiers myself for the scrutiny of such big-hitters as the ODA and the IBRD so I speak with a smidgeon of authority.

As I had determined to be a writer here was my opportunity so I sharpened my quill and set to work. In my view the proposed financial structure was nonsense…and a rip-off. Ordinary people would lose their shirts. It was a very dodgy dossier. I slaved away for a week and ended up with a 15000 word essay in my journal. Unfortunately at this point in the proceedings the dreaded person on business from Porlock rapped on the door and I took it no further.

This is a great shame as there is no end to this folly…railways, water, electricity, schools, hospitals…all have fallen victim to the stupidity of private equity when common wealth is the answer. Perhaps John Edmonds would have given me the funding to denounce this theft of our Common Wealth in a 75000 word book. We worked wonderfully well opening the batting for the Old Blues.

None of this is nuclear physics. Paying for public works from the public purse is often a good thing. Paying up front for something that gives free benefits from then on can make a lot of sense. At least I can run my personal life this way. The 600 kronor I spent for a travel pass when I arrived was money well spent. It makes me wonderfully happy to jump onboard a bus or train anywhere anytime without paying a penny.

So between 1200 and 1500 I rode the buses and trains around Stockholm visiting my old haunts in Vasastan. My coffee house on Odenplan is now a Houston Steak House but little else has changed. The Lord Byron at the end of Dannemoragatan is just the same and so are my 7-11’s. And the Konditori on Odengatan is still the same as it was in 1968 down to the very last detail of the chairs and the layout…though coffee is now 23 kronor.

But I made a mistake in my report from Kungsholmen. The unchanging façade fooled me. Behind it an enormous great retail complex has been created at the junction of St Eriksgatan and Fleminggatan. I stumbled across it coming off the subway. This is the freakiest thing of all…a complete makeover behind an unchanging façade. Spooky as Dame Edna might say.