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Author Archives: alasdairflett
Fairy cows and ferry nous
My first drive onto a ferry was not in Orkney but at Kennacraig. We were taking the boat to Port Askaig in Islay where we would be staying for three nights on a last gasp long weekend before the close … Continue reading
Posted in Life, Personal experience
Tagged 1984, adventure, bog, Carraig Fhada, dog, Europe, Finlaggan, George Orwell, Islay, Jura, life, Literature, Machair Bay, nature, Scotland, the paps, travel, whisky
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“Victor, you’re the monster!” Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein reviewed
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel that always brings me back. For me, it is the very best of what literature can be. I first read it for a university class. In the end, I don’t … Continue reading
Posted in Review
Tagged bride of frankenstein, Creature, Edinburgh, film, Frankenstein, Geneva, Glasgow Cathedral, Guillermo del Toro, horror, immortality, Literature, Mary Shelley, Orkney, oscar-isaac, poetry, Review, Romantic, science, spirit of the forest, St Giles Cathedral, Swiss Confederation, Switzerland, The Modern Prometheus, Victor
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Admitted and discharged
A historic week for the family Flett (the one commencing 8 September). It started with the 30th anniversary of my parents on Tuesday, was sandwiched with my qualification as a solicitor on Thursday and ended with the birth of the … Continue reading
Excursion sur les Côtes de Normandie, en Bretagne et à l’Île de Jersey
On the flight out, I had a window seat and could peer down at the port of Southampton and the Isle of Wight—the end goal of my August 2023 trek along the English leg of the Camino de Santiago from … Continue reading
Posted in Life, Personal experience
Tagged Bayeux, Brittany, Europe, France, French, history, Jersey, life, Mont St Michel, Normandy, St Helier, travel
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An update: professional and personal
Time for an update. Professional and personal. I learnt in March that I am being kept on at the firm I’m working for after the end of the traineeship. That means that from September I will, at last, be able … Continue reading
Posted in Life, Personal experience
Tagged Alliance Francaise, blog, career, France, francophilia, French, languages, life, teaching, travel, update, walking, writing
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Egoless autofiction or the self-erasing memoir: Nan Shepherd’s ‘The Living Mountain’
In The Living Mountain Nan Shepherd inverts her eye, but it’s not her mind we see but Mind itself. It is a theory of the mind from a particular mind mode. Mind minus ident and the idem from the idiosyncratic. … Continue reading
Posted in Review
Tagged autofiction, being, book-review, books, Cairngorms, eros, gender, hiking, Literature, memoir, Nan Shepherd, nature, perception, philosophy, pilgrimage, politics, Review, Scotland, Second World War, senses, sincerity, The Living Mountain, walking, writing
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Eva an sich or The Living Treatise: Alasdair Gray’s ‘Poor Things’ revisited
January led me to Poor Things four years ago. Public health was very much the order of the day back then as Covid restrictions, about which and around which novels are now written (see Caledonia Road by Andrew O’Hagan) still … Continue reading
Posted in Review
Tagged 18 Park Circus, 19th century, A Loving Economy, Alasdair Gray, Archie McCandless, Bella Baxter, bios and zoe, C. S. Lewis, childhood, children, Duncan Wedderburn, emma-stone, film, Frankenstein, Genesis, Glasgow, Godwin Baxter, Lanark, Literature, magical realism, mark-ruffalo, Milton, novel, Paradise Lost, polyphony, Poor Things, population, Review, Victoria Blessington, West End, Willem Dafoe, Yorgos Lanthimos
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Musical highlights: 2024
I can sign court documents in my own name now, have people swear oaths before me and (technically) represent you in a solemn criminal trial in front of a sheriff. What that is to say is that I am now … Continue reading
Posted in Life, Music, Personal experience, Review
Tagged 2024, Alvvays, Beach Fossils, brat, Charli XCX, Charlie XCX, Clairo, Drahla, Geordie Greep, Honeyblood, Khruangbin, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Lemon Twigs, life, Magdelena Bay, MGMT, Mount Kimbie, music, Nilufer Yanya, pop, Review, Say She She, Ty Segall
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Substance as well as ethereality
York York historically claimed authority over Glasgow as an archbishopric, but the Pope dissented, naming the city a special daughter of the Church. No intercessor needed between us and Rome. It began on a frosty Thursday morning. On the train … Continue reading
Posted in Life, Personal experience
Tagged cathedral, Cuddy, Durham, Durham Cathedral, England, Gothic, history, life, Norman, Ouse, Romanesque, sanctuary, Shambles, St Cuthbert, St Cuthbert's Way, St Magnus, travel, Wear, Wolf Hall, York, York Minster
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The adders and slowworms of this morning’s breakfast table
Tuesday Escape is my aim but my nostrils root me in greater Glasgow when two friends embark at Dalmuir harbouring a sharp scent of cannabis in the folds of their clothes, unfurling as they rise or shuffle in their seats. … Continue reading
Posted in Life, Personal experience
Tagged Arnold Bennett, Autumnwatch, Calgary, Calmac, Celtic cross, Celtic crucifix, Christianity, cycling, Eas Fors, Fionnphort, history, Iona Abbey, isle-of-mull, life, Literature, Mull, nature, Scotland, St Columba, St John's Cross, St Martin's Cross, The Waves, Tobermory, travel, Ulva, Virginia Woolf, wildlife
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Flett-cetera 