I belong tae Glasgow, dear old ...



Glasgow in the 1970s. These pictures put a lump in my throat for various reasons, but not exactly because it's pretty.

Apparently I don’t belong tae Glasgae town anymore.

I was chatting away at a dinner party the other night. There were a couple of sharp-witted and socially combative people either side of me.

Towards the end of the evening I said the one good thing about being from Glasgow is that it makes the weather everywhere else better.

"You're not from Glasgow," my Kiwi interlocutor said.

"I was born there," I said.

"But don't say you're from there," she said. And she said it with a mild accusation in her voice, as if I were being pretentious.

"Well where am I from?" I asked. She obviously had the answers.

"I don't know, but you're not from Glasgow," she said.

"Are you accusing me of making up the fact that I was born in Glasgow?" I asked. "Because that might be a first in human conversation."

"I'm not accusing you of anything," she said. "I just don't think you should say you're from Glasgow."

God, these pictures look so old. Glasgow, 1976

Now I've been accused of being pompous many times, but never for "claiming" to be from Glasgow.

"But if I was born there and went to school there and have spent as much time there as anywhere else, where should I say I'm from?" I asked, feeling a bit of Glasgow ire rising in me.

"I think you're saying you're from Glasgow just to give yourself a bit of street cred," she said. "Why do you have to be from anywhere?"

It's always bad when pictures from your time in your place are only in black and white. These girls look like they have street cred, though.

Now it's true that I've been gone from Scotland for a long time, but this drove home the point. When the hell did it get to be so cool to be from Glasgow that people lied about it? People used to lie about not being from there.

I think I like it. I think I'm going to introduce myself with the fact that I was born in Glasgow from now on. You know, to give myself a bit of street cred. Oh, and talking of street cred: My wife's from Philly. Go ahead and argue with her about where she's from, bitch. I dare you.