The Slow Flow of Glasgow: The Slow Train to Arisaig

'Only long miles of strangeness can lead us to our home'. Kenneth White

Everything is connected, that much we know. And 'Glasgow', as an autopoietic entity in its own right - living, breathing, evolving, self-organizing - is no different. Its paths and roads, tracks and tributaries, lead us out into a wider Glasgow that, depending on where you go, physically - metaphysically, can come to encompass the whole cosmos. Whether the self or the city, entities are never confined to the boundaries of their epidermal envelopes...

The train from Glasgow Queen Street to Mallaig on the north-west coast some 200 miles distant is one of the great train journeys of the world. The scenery is stunning: mountains, bridges, lochs and gorges... the occasional golden eagle. The train itself, this late February morning is practically empty. I feel like royalty, royalty that has paid a mere fifteen notes each way for this utter privilege. My only 'complaint' is that I hadn't done it sooner. The short cycle along the river to the station from my Glasgow flat took ten minutes. The downhill glide from Arisaig station (2 stops shy of Mallaig) to my lodgings took about two. The slow train to Arisaig, though it may have taken 5 hours, was in truth infinite: 'in-finite' as unfinished, these trips do not simply vanish once 'completed', they live within you forever, invariably growing with power after the fact.

Having travelled the world several times over, I now realise the power of my own native land. It has taken some time and some miles, but finally the stranger has come home.

Portnadoran, just round the corner from Arisaig.

'How much do you think this bay is worth?' asks the American businessman in Local Hero (part of the film was shot on these shores). To which Fulton McKay (the man who lives and works on the beach, the local hero) just laughs.