Author Archives: alasdairflett

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About alasdairflett

German & English Literature graduate. From Orkney. Interested in alternative and indie music, language, writing and politics.

Eva an sich or The Living Treatise: Alasdair Gray’s ‘Poor Things’ revisited

Posted on 25/01/2025 by alasdairflett

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 →

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Musical highlights: 2024

Posted on 22/12/2024 by alasdairflett

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 →

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Substance as well as ethereality

Posted on 01/12/2024 by alasdairflett

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 →

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The adders and slowworms of this morning’s breakfast table

Posted on 20/10/2024 by alasdairflett

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 →

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The province and the metropole: Guy de Maupassant and ‘The Outrun’ reviewed

Posted on 06/10/2024 by alasdairflett

I was a couple of paragraphs into Guy de Maupassant’s short story Corsica when I had a sudden and vivid sense of déjà vu. Where had I read this before? Was it in an educational context? Perhaps at school? But … Continue reading →

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Gentlemanly pursuits and David Graeber’s ‘Bullshit Jobs’

Posted on 11/08/2024 by alasdairflett

Woodside Library has a “take a book, recommend a book shelf”. I’ve borrowed from it multiple times. The last time I did so, I picked up David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs and recommended North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I had … Continue reading →

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The Wexford-Pembrokeshire Way or a Hiberno-Welsh Odyssey

Posted on 01/06/2024 by alasdairflett

These are trying times indeed. I’ve been watching connected criminal proceedings at the Glasgow Sheriff Court as part of my job as a trainee civil litigation solicitor. On the third day observing I had cycled back down to Carlton Place … Continue reading →

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From the new petty bourgeoisie to the PMC: a review of Dan Evans’ ‘A Nation of Shopkeepers’

Posted on 21/04/2024 by alasdairflett

According to Dan Evans, I am a member of an emergent social class he calls the new petty bourgeoisie. Evans’s thesis is that the new petty bourgeoisie has been the driving force in left politics and populism over the past … Continue reading →

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On a Central European vibe

Posted on 10/03/2024 by alasdairflett

I am nearing the end of a beginner’s course in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I decided to try it after watching many Breathe and Flow yoga videos on YouTube where the guy (Florian) frequently mentions how his yoga practice feeds into the … Continue reading →

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North and South: 19th-century doorstopper still bears the heft it once did

Posted on 03/02/2024 by alasdairflett

As far as Victorian novels go, I think North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell retains a degree of accessibility that many have shed in the intervening 150 years or so. The North/South divide lives on in the popular consciousness where … Continue reading →

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