WHO wouldn’t wish to go on a journey with Jon Ronson?

After all, it’s thanks to the Welsh journalist/broadcaster’s international best sellers that we appreciate that many corporate leaders are, in fact, psychopaths (The Psychopath Test).

It’s thanks to Ronson we first came to appreciate the malevolent power of Twitter and social media (So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.)

And this man, whose Ted talks have been watched by 15m, underlined how crazy and dangerous American military leaders are (The Men Who Stare At Goats; made into a film starring George Clooney.

Ronson, always scratching, always searching, can tell a great investigations tale; if he were a Marvel Comics character he would be Beaver Man.

Now, the 52-year-old is bringing his thoughts and unique insight into our mixed up world to Glasgow.

His new show, Tales from The Last Days of August and The Butterfly Effect, features his take on the porn industry.

This gave him the impetus to look at the effects on the porn industry on America’s West Coast.

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“I saw the porn people were sweet natured and well meaning,” he says. “The tech people seemed less reputable.”

This story then conflates with the tragic tale of August Ames, the porn star who took her own life in 2017 at the age of 23.

She had been bullied mercilessly on social media, the very theme Ronson investigated in So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.

Ronson admits he has long been blessed/stricken with this need to uncover information, a desire to rip open any box marked Secret.

The writer grins when asked how much his being irritated and needing answers has allowed his career to grow? “You’ve got be a bit of an independent spirit,” he says.

“For example, at one time everyone was agreeing public shaming was great, the consensus was this was a new weapon in our hands.

“People were a little sniffy at the time I wrote the book. [Shamed]. But they were f*****s.”

So where does the curiosity come from? “Maybe it comes from my time at school, where the consensus was that I was a t***,” he says, laughing. “So you become suspicious of mainstream source.”

In the summer of 1983, Ronson, then a 16-year-old pupil at Cardiff High School, was thrown in a lake by fellow pupils.

Many years later he wrote a newspaper column recalling the incident. One of the offenders wrote back to say they had done it because he was annoying.

Well, Ronson is still annoying, but mostly to those such as Katie Hopkins or David Icke who hate to be challenged. And he’s had the last laugh; he’s a multi-million selling author and a Hollywood screenwriter.

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But how did he emerge from the lake of ignominy to living in Manhattan and being played on screen by Ewan McGregor. It turns out he dropped out of journalism college to become a keyboard player with comic musician Frank Sidebottom’s band. (The van driver at the time was Chris Evans).

In the early 1990s, Ronson became Terry Christian’s sidekick on Manchester radio station KFM and later co-presented a show with actor Craig Cash.

The presenting work led to writing a column with Time Out magazine, which led to his own TV series – and major success with his investigation books.

But how confident is he in his initial ideas, not knowing if he will discover enough to enthral the world?

Does he need a publisher behind him? “In a way you have to trick yourself into wanting to do a story,” he says.

“I tell myself I’m definitely looking to solve a mystery, that if I go on this trip whatever happens will be mysterious and interesting. It’s about telling your brain to fall in love with the story.

“But if the feeling comes along – maybe every couple of years – I really do go with it.”

He finds leads others wouldn’t notice. “I remember reading a review of the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the handbook used by health care professionals in the United States) and was struck by the realisation this one-time pamphlet now ran to 867 pages,” he says, laughing.

“It made me wonder what had happened?” (Examples include Sluggish Cognitive Tempo Disorder; basically, this is someone who can’t be bothered).

Ronson, who laughs a lot in conversation, has also learned to have the courage of his own convictions.

“If you have a feeling something is going to be good you have to go with it. I remember sending a friend early chapters of The Psychopathy Test and So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed and he wasn’t impressed at all.”

If I’d listened to him my life would have gone in a very different way.”

I’m presuming you don’t send him drafts now, Jon? “Not a word,” he laughs.

Ronson, whose wife Elaine is from Cumbernauld, doesn’t lack the confidence to tell tales on stage.

“I’ve always been good on stage, compared to most authors,” he says.

“Having said that, so many great authors shuffle on stage and mumble 20 pages, boring the audience to tears. I’ve always had higher ambitions than that.”

But life isn’t perfect. “I have a book idea and a TV project I’m working on,” he says, not at all surprisingly. “Yet, what I really want is to learn to take days off. We’ve bought a house in upstate New York and my hope is I can sit in the garden and look at a tree.”

After the tour, Jon? “Yes,” he says, laughing. “After the tour.”

Tales from The Last Days of August and The Butterfly Effect, The Grand Hall, Glasgow (Old Fruitmarket), May 25.