I should know better

What`s defiantly orange, in your face, and frozen? No, not a Larkhall man at the North Pole - Irn Bru ice cream. I discovered it in a local shop in the current heatwave, and, having led a sheltered life, couldn`t believe it.

Irn Bru gets everywhere.For the rest of you out there, Irn Bru is a totally Scottish aberration. Glowing orange, and terminally sweet, it is marketed as "your other national drink". It pushes Coke well into second place in the fizzy drink market. A national institution for about a century, it began as a health drink (and so did Coke, but that stuff we don`t mention isn`t in it now, and hasn`t been there for over a hundred years). It still contains a small amount of iron, and is usually said to owe its continued popularity to creative advertising, but every Scot knows it is really indispensable because of a legendary reputation as a surefire hangover cure, capable of raising the dead....well, lots of water and sugar can`t hurt.

In the present warm spell, the orange bottles and cans are everywhere, contrasting luridly with the lobster scarlet bodies that a few days of hot sunshine brings out everywhere in this country.

The taste....? Well, sorta fruity and incredibly sweet, I suppose. I haven`t touched it in years, not since I was put off by an incredibly ageist advertising campaign, so I`m no expert.

I discover that now you can even get it abroad. Could Irn Bru conquer the world?

If a Scot ever gets to the moon, you`ll know it. Left behind, shining orange in the earthlight, will be a little empty can....