My impending midlife crisis is mapped out. It will involve a quad bike, toy boy, dachshund, tattoo and a total meltdown. Probably in that order.

IT’S a Wednesday night and we’re looking for somewhere achingly Italian, so thick with the aroma of Tuscany, Umbria and Puglia it will make up for missing out on a slice of la dolce vita for the third year in a row.

You know when you’re bemoaning the lack of cherry blossom and, suddenly, it’s everywhere, like an eruption of raspberry Creamola Foam when you’ve added too much water. Or, when your sock drawer is brimming over like a trawler’s net, because they’ve all been through the wash and you don’t need to wear them any more.

If all the routes you made through your city were threads, then I would have made a rather sturdy weave around Black Bo’s bar. Sure, the fabric would be a bit moth-eaten and mildewed by now, because it hasn’t been a regular haunt of mine for about a decade.

WHEN the Left Bank opened in the summer of 2006, it was the epitome of Glaswegian cool. If the West End seemed to be gradually losing the bohemian mojo that had made it such a famously vibrant place to be in the 1970s and 1980s, the Left Bank appeared to be kicking back with a vengeance.

You’ve sugar-soaped the walls, slicked your living room in Farrow & Ball’s Pigeon, put three coats on the ceiling by balancing on high-heels, two copies of the Yellow Pages and a chair, then brushed 24ct gold leaf on to your cornice.