Done that… good. I have to say I tend to have a bit of a policy of not getting drawn into internet based slagging matches as these things tend to linger in digital land for years and pop back up now and again to haunt you. But I challenge anyone in Dundee to read that article and not feel moved to vent their feelings. If Dundee was a person then the extent of the untruths that Melanie Reid is spouting would be tantamount to slander.

So why does she feel the need to attack Dundee, she mentions other cities that came from less and became so much more with the creation of a landmark building such as the V&A but continues to suggest that Dundee is beyond salvation painting it throughout as grotty and dour – a place where midget women are seen on a frequent basis spitting in the street.

Now I know Dundee has its problems and its outward image might well be one of them, I mean it does have the most ridiculous logo’s adorning near enough every entrance to the place but to paint the kind of picture in a national Newspaper that suggests Dundee is still some post-industrial relic is grossly under researched. I don’t know much about Melanie Reid other than the fact that she was a Herald journalist before moving on to the Times but I am guessing (which is a slightly more credible form of journalism than inventing) from this that she has spent too long in the central belt and not really travelled Scotland much.

Rather than rely on her out dated, under researched stereotypes, she could have easily written an article about how the addition of the V&A to Dundee was another step on Dundee’s current re-invention as a city of culture, art, science and above all creativity, the perfect complement to its excellent art centre, its college of art and design and burgeoning digital industries. She mentions Bilbao and Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim without noting that Dundee is already host to one of his buildings (the only city in the UK to be in this position) preferring rather to highlight Dundee’s role in creating Grand Theft Auto, a great achievement in itself but one more easily associated with the image she wants to construe.

While it’s not my place to tell people what to say there is a difference between sloppy Journalism and well researched informed opinion. She has showed ladles of one and a bare pinch of the other.