MICHTY me, as Oor Wullie is wont to say.

As well, in this instance, he might at the staggering news that the impresario Pete Irvine has decreed in his latest book, Scotland The Best 100 Places, that there is nowhere worth seeing in Dundee or - jings! crivvens! - Aberdeen.

In my experience, it is never wise to stick a pin in places, irrespective of how awful they are.

Once, when a judge on the Plook on the Plinth awards, I said something untoward about Ardrossan. Or was it Dalkeith? Maybe it was Cumbernauld.

Wherever it was, it was soon made clear that, were I to be seen in any of these parts, it would be me who would be found in parts, the general feeling being, "So what if we live in a midden, at least it's our midden."

Irvine is, of course, the author of Scotland The Best guidebook, of which I am a disciple.

As I travel the country, healing referendum scars and spreading good cheer, it is never far from my side.

I have used it from Wick to Wigtown and have rarely been misdirected.

Indeed, in my highly selective opinion, no-one has done more than Irvine to hymn this litter-strewn heath, finding daffodils in dung-heaps and lilies amid landfill.

For his is a glass that is invariably half-full. His ambition is to raise standards rather than decry the lowest common denominator.

Long before there was TripAdvisor, Irvine was touring the country so we wouldn't have to.

Far from pouring chip fat on him, as various stuffy burghers in Dundee and Aberdeen have been doing, we should be covering him generously in ketchup.

But that is not the way things are done hereabouts.

The Dundee Courier was not alone in noting that Irvine has ignored "everything" its parish has to offer.

From the tone of the article you could tell that its panjandrums were abundantly seething; so much so that it was not until near its end it mentioned that "Aberdeen has also been overlooked".

What was even more interesting, though, were the comments from Courier readers, several of whom took the paper to task for its rather downbeat coverage of the "City of Discovery".

"When do you sing Dundee's praises?" asked one, while another wailed: "There must be something good."

Most emailers, however, appeared to agree with Irvine, that there is nothing special to see in Dundee.

On Dundee's behalf I feel mildly aggrieved, having recently spent a couple of days there.

There is the McManus Gallery, which I would recommend but, if friendly bombs were to fall on the city centre, I doubt a modern-day John Betjeman would mourn its demise.

But what's great about Dundee are Dundonians, folk like the singer Sheena Wellington whose take on life might be called "stomical", a portmanteau word consisting of "stoical" and "comical".

They know they're the nation's third or fourth city but do they care? Do they heck.

One might say the same of Aberdeen. Still reeling from being preposterously described as the most dismal town in Scotland (has whoever said that never been to S******** or H***** or L******?) by an architectural magazine, it has always kept its charms well camouflaged.

Oil money has not improved it. When offered an art gallery, Aberdonians opted for a mall. Apparently, another humungous one is in the ether.

There are lovely parks where you can freeze to death and a long beach where, if on a windy day you're caught by a gust, you might end up in Bergen.

It's what Aberdonians call a budget flight.

Aberdeen is not, and perhaps never will be, an aesthetically pleasing place but there are nuggets of granite gorgeousness, especially in Old Aberdeen, into which few locals ever venture.

There you will find King's College, the St Machar bar and the Sir Duncan Rice library, opened just two years ago, a wonderful ice cube of learning, all of which, Mr Irvine, I have no hesitation in putting in my top 100.