I SPEND a lot of time on my phone. An obscene amount of time. The nature of my work means I’m always on it organising meetings, arranging gigs, making notes for things I’m writing, emails and promoting my books etc etc. As well as that though, what I also tend to do is just scroll mindlessly through the same three or four apps, avoiding the aforementioned responsibilities.

“Why bother replying to that email chasing me up for that thing that was due nearly a week ago that I’m nowhere near finished?” I say to myself. “First of all, I need to carefully select pictures to post on the dug’s Instagram account AND come up with funny captions for them.”

I’ll give myself a wee five-minute break from writing in the morning, pick up my phone, then when I come back up for air it’s the middle of the afternoon and I’ve done absolutely hee haw.

I deliberately try not to go on my phone now when I’m around other people, it’s easy to come off as unintentionally rude as you get hypnotised by your screen and don’t hear what they’re saying.

I lost my phone a wee while ago and the 24 hours I spent phoneless was surreal. I found myself completely at a loss as to how to fill the gaps in my day.

I sat on the train and found myself just looking out the window, like some kind of weirdo. I didn’t know what to do, where to look, how to hold myself in a manner that wasn’t hunched over with my neck craned and staring blankly at a screen. It was madness.

But the saddest thing I’ve noticed about me using my phone is the effect it seems to have on my dug.

I only noticed it a couple of weeks ago but whenever I’m on it, he doesn’t come anywhere near me.

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It’s as if he knows I’m away somewhere else, maybe he can tell by my glaikit face as I scroll through screeds and screeds and nonsense and bile on Twitter.

However, as soon as he hears the sound of me clicking the button to lock my phone or he hears me putting it down on the table, he comes right over, looking to get clapped.

Sometimes he’ll curl up on my lap and if he sees me reaching for it again, he’ll let out a wee sigh. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

This has led to me, over the last week or so, to leave my phone in my pocket when I’m out and about, notifications and that all turned off so I’m no tempted to check it every few minutes.

I don’t want to exaggerate and say this incredibly simple wee change, that I shouldn’t really have had to make this much of an effort to make, has changed my life or anything like that but honestly the amount of inspiration I’m now getting that I can use in my writing is unbelievable.

Every single day I’m noticing people I think could blossom into incredible characters on the page. I’m seeing things in real life that you’d maybe read in a book and go, “Nah, mate. That’s too far,” or, “No chance, that’d never happen!”

Things I can’t repeat in a column in Glasgow’s finest paper.

It’s brilliant to sit back and take in Glasgow and see it as almost like a living breathing creature that we all live on the back of.

Always shifting, changing, twisting and turning itself into new forms, reinventing itself.

In every pub, in every shop, in every post office, I know for a fact there’ll be at least half a dozen folk in there with a story waiting to be told.

A story that’ll no doubt be filled warmth, laughter, tears, heartbreak and love.

I think I’ve maybe taken this city for granted over the last wee while, even talking it down, moaning about it and wishing I was somewhere else.

But Glasgow is a magic city, it always has been and as long as we keep doing what we’re doing, looking out for each other and hauling each other back up when we’re down then it always will be.

With this column I’m going to try and show the city in all its glory. Every weird, surreal, funny, beautiful moment I come across during the week will end up here, condensed into a wee 800-word package designed to make you smile. I hope you all enjoy it.