The Watt Blog - Soft Relaunch

I can’t believe it has been seven months since I attempted to start writing a blog nor can I believe that in that time I have failed to write anything! Now in my defence, it ended up being a very busy seven months (including one unsuccessful general election for those of us on the left) but still, I can’t claim that it has been a successful adventure in blogging. However, I can confirm that not only is this blog going to happen but due to the great diary clearing caused by the Global Pandemic I now have the time and creative energy to start updating it regularly.

So watch this space – it's (hopefully) going to be a wild ride!

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They Were the Future Once – A Review of Militant Modernism by Owen Hatherley

So before we begin I have a confession which will shock no-one. You see I’m not really that much of a modernist, indeed when it comes to aesthetics I am far closer to the arts and crafts movement of William Morris, the socialist illustrations of Walter Crane or let’s be honest, the general aesthetic of 20 th century left-wing Anglo-Catholicism. (Today being Palm Sunday we walked around the church singing hymns, clergy carrying massive palm branches, the congregation our palm crosses – say what you like about the Scottish Episcopal Church but we know how to combine faith, fun and ritual.) So I’m probably not the natural audience for a treatise on why failed Modernism attempts in the interwar period point to new ways of socialist praxis that can inspire the future. However, I have another confession to make. I really rate Owen Hatherley’s work. His books that describe and critique modern architecture (such as A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain and A New Kind of Bleak ) w...

Where The Referendums Never Stop - A Review of "Why Switzerland?" by Jonathan Steinberg

Why Switzerland? by Jonathan Steinberg is a 1996 non-fiction text that aims to answer the question of why Switzerland culture and political structures are so unique compared to its European neighbours. Why did I read Why Switzerland? that’s simple – I’d always heard that Switzerland was famously decentralised and used referendums all the time, but barely knew anything about the country other than chocolate, clocks and banks so I wanted to find out more. But why Why Switzerland? in particular? That’s even easier, it was the only English language book I could find that covered the topic without being either a travelogue or a very dry political science treatise. It seems that Switzerland, if Glasgow libraries are to be believed, is a rather obscure country. But anyway, onto the review! Why Switzerland? is in many ways a very old-fashioned attempt at summarising the essence of a country in a book. Its aim is to summarise why Switzerland exists and what makes it uniquely Swiss. It does t...

Fairies and Shamans in My Scotland? – The Secret Commonwealth by Robert Kirk

The Secret Commonwealth or A Treatise Displaying the Chief Curousities among the People of Scotland as they are in Use to This Day by the Reverand Robert Kirk is a famous study on 17 th century folk beliefs where Kirk sums up many of the beliefs around faeries and the second sight prevalent amongst his parishioners in 1690s Aberfoyle. It’s a book I remember hearing about during my undergraduate at Aberdeen, but at the time the only copy was in the Heavy Demand section, and so it was only this year that I finally managed to get a hold of a copy of the Folklore Society edition edited by Stewart Sanderson from my local university library in Glasgow. Or at least, I thought that I had taken out the Folklore Society version – what I had actually taken out was the edition by ceremonial magician and occultist R J Stewart . Realising I had made a mistake I did eventually take out the Folklore Society version as well, so in a rare treat the Alt Clud Review of Books is reviewing two books for...

The Alt Clud Review of Books

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