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As I write this, I’m not even in Glasgow. I’m in Edinburgh, the city that claims to be Scotland’s capital city.

Of course, any Glaswegian knows the truth of this whole capital city carry-on. Glasgow is the true capital of Scotland – we only let Edinburgh call itself the capital because we cannae be bothered with all the admin that’s involved.

Yes. It’s the Edinburgh Fringe, and tonight (Thursday the 4 th ) is the first night of the Burnistoun show at the Gilded Balloon. We’re going out on stage with an hour of completely new material, so we’re not sure yet whether any of it actually works. We think it does, and hope it does, but time will tell whether we’re going to be having a fun couple of weeks or returning to Glasgow with our tails between our legs.

Comedy is a risky game. There’s no grey area. Either people laugh or they don’t. I can’t wait to see what happens.

Here’s a photo of the team!

I’m hoping to see a bit of Edinburgh while I’m hanging around in the city. There seems to be about a hundred guided tours happening here, with people in period costume leading groups of tourists around the streets. I think there’s a real gap in the market for something like that back in Glasgow. I’d happily dress up like a wee Glesga man of the late 1970s, with a bunnet on and a rolled up newspaper and a bookie’s pencil behind my ear, and lead a bunch of people from Japan on a tour of notorious Glasgow pubs.

“This rubble here is pretty much where The Brig used to be. It was a pub right under the famous Red Road Flats, and there was nae windaes inside. The lack of windaes was bad in terms of natural daylight, but good for the fact that naebody could be flung through them if somebody looked at them the wrang way.”

Every single corner of Edinburgh seems designed to appeal to tourists. There’s no shortage of places to buy that horrible chalky stuff that these wideos call “Edinburgh Rock”. It’s like they tried to make proper rock with all the wrong ingredients and then decided to go with it.

I think that rock sums the difference between Edinburgh and Glasgow up. In Glesga, that faulty rock would be getting sold round the pubs all broken up in poly bags for a quid a pop. In Edinburgh they stick four bits of it in a tartan packet and shift it for a fiver.

You’re left not knowing what to believe. Seriously – apparently Edinburgh has these mad underground vaults and streets and stuff, running directly under the centre of the city. A whole old town under the modern streets. There are spooky stories of people visiting the place and emerging months later, a shadow of their former selves.

It sounds a bit like IKEA, but I want to check it out anyway. Maybe they serve good meatballs down there.

Let me tell you, at Festival time, the streets here are rammed with people trying to punt their show at you. Everywhere you turn there is someone shoving a flyer into your hand. It’s just not the kind of thing that would work in Glasgow, I don’t think. I don’t think we’d put up with it back home. By the time we’d been handed our third our fourth flyer I think we’d be staging our own production of “Man Stuffs Flyers Into Guy’s Throat” in the middle of Sauchiehall Street.

Glasgow isn’t really a flyering city, is it? Sure, we have people out on Friday and Saturday night flyering for clubs and stuff, but beyond that? Nah. In Glesga, we like to stick our adverts on poles. And not even in prominent places, like smack bang in the city centre or something.

We like to stick our adverts on poles in Dennistoun, Shettleston, Balornock, places like that, just on random streets. And we don’t put a great deal of effort into graphic design either. It’s always stuff like “SAMMY’S REMOVALS”, then a phone number, all written in inky pen. Or really direct, specific ones like “WASPS DESTROYED - £25”.

I like to think that one is a guy who pays people 25 quid to let him come and fight their wasps. I don’t know why some hard man hasn’t tried to make some money by sticking up “GUYS BATTERED - £25” in streets around the West End. He’d make a fortune.

(Couple of wee violence-related jokes in the column so far today. Maybe it’s just because I’m in Edinburgh in West Coast of Scotland Comedy Mode that these things are spilling out of me. In any case, I apologise. I’m fiercely opposed to violence of all kinds, and if you hear anybody suggest otherwise they’ll be getting their jaw rattled.)

(Image: Getty Images)

But it’s time to be honest – I actually have a lot of affection for Edinburgh these days. It’s a beautiful city, all bridges and cobbles and turrets and stuff, and I love the way the castle gets lit up at night. True, the Glesga in me makes me want to knock some of those big lamps, because that purple glow would work a belter in my bedroom, but the respect I have for Edinburgh is enough to stop me trying to smuggle a 25 metre-wide light onto the train at Waverley Station.

It’s a romantic city too, isn’t it? Plenty of wee nooks and crannies and alleyways for being romantic in at two in the morning. They should do a street tour of those places too.

“And this alleyway is where a couple are winching right now as we speak. If you look closely, you might be able to see tongues.”

I’ll see you in the city.