Stephen McGinty on Katy Perry: Girls just want to have fun, but where was the insight into Glasgow's adventurous spirit?

WHAT Alastair Gray and William McIlvanney have strained their whole professional life to achieve, Katy Perry has miraculously managed in seconds: to capture the soul of Glasgow in prose.

Bigotry? Check. Edinburgh envy? Big tick. But where, prey tell, was her hymn to our legendary friendliness, which mixes one part warmth to two parts aggression and was described by our greatest son, William Connolly, as akin to a dog barking? Or our dedication to al fresco dining (or smoking) in all weathers, which prompted Frankie Boyle to describe his home town as Montmartre after a nuclear attack? Given Ms Perry's candy-flavoured pop videos, where was her cry for a "deep-fried Mars bar", for is hot fat and sugar not the very life-blood of each and every citizen of the Dear Green Place?

She should have been told the secret of Glasgow is our adventurous spirit, which is why, more than any other city, the last words of Glaswegians tend to be: "Watch this!"