Nick – I don’t really use pure dead brilliant, but I know it, and I remember it as Prestwick Airport’s quite cringy advertising! I do use pure to mean really or very though… I always thought gallus meant cheeky in a kind of chancer but with charm kind of way…but it is more of a weegie word, so I’ll bow to your superior knowledge!

It’s difficult to imagine how a visitor to our fair city feels when confroned with a native. Fortunately, in “Notes From a Small Island” Bill Bryson does a damn fine job. I explained to my Catalan girlfriend before our visit to Glasgow at Hogmany/New Year that if Bill Bryson can’t understand us then the chances of her understanding anything in a room full of drunkards in the east end of Glasgow at Hogmany were slim.