The smell? That’ll be Ailsa Craig

WAS down at Troon at the weekend for a big family lunch and a bracing stroll along the front.

It wasn’t the sunniest of days but it was clear enough that you could see Arran and Ailsa Craig, and in this part of the world that counts as a summer.

Anyway, some of our party were born outside bonny Caledonia and I was about to fill them in on interesting bits of local colour when our walk suddenly took us into a ripe local stench.

It was obvious to the seasoned beach hand that some particularly rank-smelling seaweed had been washed in that day. But among the less experienced sea-sniffers, there was speculation that the stink might in fact be from sewage.

I reassured them that this wasn’t possible as the sludge boats had stopped dumping Glasgow’s, er, sludge in the Firth of Clyde back in 1998 (thanks to EU legislation, all you Brexiteers!).

But then it occurred to me to tell them that Ailsa Craig only actually came into existence after the sludge boats were introduced in the 1900s.

My wife looked at me meaningfully, but I’d had a good lunch and it had stimulated my sheer badness nerve. So I went on.

I’d have to work quickly to maximise my evil pleasure

Yes, popular myth will have it that Ailsa Craig – also known as Paddy’s Milestone – is a lump of ancient granite, from which is hewn all the material to make curling stones.

But no. In fact, it is a giant pile of sludge created, albeit unwittingly, by generations of regular Glaswegians, aided and abetted by the strange, swirling currents of the Firth.

There were a couple of uncertain titters and some young eyes narrowed. I was obviously having them on. Wasn’t I? I am aged and sage. Why would I lie?

Hands reached into pockets in search of computer devices linked to Google. I’d have to work quickly to maximise my evil pleasure.

But it came unstuck when I said the most unpopular job in Glasgow Corporation was rowing round the sludge and patting it into shape with large shovels.

Threats were made to throw me on the seaweed.

OK, I know it’s silly and juvenile, but it makes me happy. I’m thinking of telling them next that the two fish on the Glasgow coat of arms are a salmon and a sturgeon, in honour of the SNP government.

Sounds watertight to me.