Well, that was exciting, wasn’t it? Nigel Farage coming all the way to Scotland just to hide from the press. He could have done that in a cupboard at home and saved everyone the bother.

In even more thrilling news, a letter has arrived in these parts. An actual letter from a real person who had taken the trouble to compose their thoughts, find a stamp, and hike to a post box. Before I had read a word of the contents, the correspondent struck me as a class act, and so it proved.

The letter’s subject was BBC Scotland cancelling River City, an act I had previously described as cultural vandalism.

My correspondent had a cooler disposition and a better way with words. Summing up how the soap had been brought low in recent years, she wrote: “Its viewing figures were adversely affected by stop/start production runs, erratic scheduling and a general lack of promotion.” Spot on.

​And then came this: “I began watching River City out of loyalty to my city, but came to the view that it makes an important contribution to the culture of central Scotland.”

BBC Scotland HQ at Pacific Quay

Watching out of loyalty to my city. How wonderful, how generous, how Scottish is that? Of the thousands of words written and spoken about River City, all the BBC statements, the petition to save the show, the debate in the Scottish Parliament, not one sentence hits home as hard as that contribution. Watching out of loyalty to my city. There writes someone who “gets” what River City means, and why it is not just another programme that can be binned by BBC Scotland because its face no longer........

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