A friend of mine in Glasgow was late for his work last Saturday, and had to catch the train to Queen Street instead of Central as normal. He was thinking, 'I can hoof it down Buchanan Street, turn onto St Vincent and along down to Central'. Even on a Saturday afternoon, that can take maybe five or six minutes maximum.
It took him FORTY-FIVE MINUTES. The whole length of Buchanan Street was in full festival mode, taken over by a sea of Saltires and Lion Rampants. Pipers were playing, and it sounded like quite a party. He called me and I heard great joy, an elation I haven't heard from Scotland in years. The whole city centre had a real buzz going on, and it was replicated that same Saturday in town centres all over Scotland.
When I was growing up in Glasgow, and especially when we learned about history in school, we were instilled with this inbred inferiority complex. We were taught based on the past, and on the present that was unfolding, that we were a nation that had been defeated and put to bed, that we couldn't ever amount to anything. Thatcherism added to this sense of decline, and things haven't improved since.
I had to leave Glasgow and found myself in London. Through hard work and determination I made it, and that Scottish self-doubt ebbed away. I had to make it down south, but being Scottish helped me achieve that; it made me realise that I had something else to prove because of where I was from.
And that is what is happening right now in this country: people are waking up, and the BBC and the Labour Party can't stop them. History is within Scotland's grasp, a beautiful and inspiring climax; self-determination is possible.
Ignore the stories of being too wee and too poor; they won't work this time. If Scotland is really this insignificant, if we really get more back than we pay in, why are we seeing a campaign of fear and intimidation to keep us? Who would want to keep a 'region', as they call us? This government won't subsidise someone's spare bedroom, so why would they subsidise a whole country?
When you have that paper in your hand on Thursday, look at the question for a second and think carefully: 'Should Scotland be an independent country'?
Free to choose our own path, to make our way again in the world, to live and prosper in peace and harmony and to create and inspire. We've had 300 odd years of being stifled; it's time to open the windows.
Lose that feeling of 'we cannae dae this', and ignore the fear and negativity; the only scare story we haven't heard yet from the No camp is that the beer will run out on September 19th if YES wins. And by Christ it will!
You hold the dreams and hope of future generations in your hands in that booth. If we vote No, that will be the last time that a Scottish vote will ever have any significance, and that is a grim certainty.
And it's not a vote for the SNP or Alex Salmond, as we don't have the next Holyrood Elections until 2016, that's when party politics come into this.
Scotland is waking up and realising that the 1% of people who have everything, and run everything, didn't get that way by accident.
If it's a YES, we can see a great renaissance and a new age in Scotland. Maybe the next Alan McGee of the 21st Century won't have to go to London to make his mark in the world, and I believe in that.
And also think of the buzz of singing Flower of Scotland at the next Scotland home game next month, against England if it's happening, after a YES victory!
So if you won't vote YES for yourself, think of others.
Now think of the Scotland you want to leave behind, for your children's future.
And to crib from an album title of mine, put the "X" in the YES box. And think to yourself, I'm Doing It For the future kids of my family.