I was out and about this week when I spotted a new brand of aftershave on the shelves of a German drugstore. Scotish Man. Not Scottish… no, Scotish. In the same way that the word “posh” is pronounced with a long O if you want it to sound really really posh. Or it might possibly be a veiled allusion to the scone pronunciation dilemma which dogs all corners of the British Isles and makes us end up ordering crumpets instead.

This is clearly an aspirational product for the Germans. Who could resist the lure of a German who smells like a Scotsman? Of course, the big question is, what does a Scotsman actually smell like? Is this fragrance composed using delicate notes of sea breezes, heather and bracken, or are we talking about undertones of deep-fat fried Mars bars, haggis, neeps, whisky and irn bru? Will there be a lingering after-scent of caber-tosser’s armpit, or kilt-wearer’s privates?

I was intrigued, on inspecting the back of the packaging, to find that this particular eau de toilette (and I use the French term in a Celtic context here) is manufactured in Poland. Could it be that the canny Scots are actually exporting their body odours to Eastern Europe to provide the raw ingredients for this olefactory delight?

I think finally we may have discovered the must-have gift for the smelly German in our lives.