ACTOR Steve Coogan, in his role as toe-curlingly gauche radio presenter Alan Partridge, once asked his audience who was their favourite piper.

He later announced that surprisingly actress Billie was beaten for the top spot by "bag". It's funny of course, but as a Scot you do have a residual concern that a musical instrument associated throughout the world with Scotland, is often simply used in a cheap joke.

There is the gag about the Scot in America, for example, who boasts he doesn't need a clock as whenever he practises his bagpipes, someone bangs on the wall to tell him it's three o'clock in the morning, or whatever the time is. Then there is an excruciating convoluted one about an amorous octopus trying to get the tartan pyjamas off a set of bagpipes.

Even folk proud of their Scottish ancestry see the funny side. The Caledonia Club of San Francisco sold T-shirts at its Highland Games with the motto "Bagpipes - Putting the fun back into funerals".

One American golfer even took on a philosophical mien when he declared: "The people who gave us golf and called it a game are the same people who gave us bagpipes and called it music."

Yet there are so few countries that can boast of international recognition with a musical instrument. Australia and the didgeridoo come to mind. England? Nope, nothing. This week in Glasgow the sound of piping drifts in the wind. It is the week of Piping Live!, which culminates in the World Pipe Band Championships this weekend at Glasgow Green, when more than 200 bands from around the world, with up to 10,000 bandsmen, march into the city.

Other cities dream of having such a world event, which brings spending power and recognition. Glaswegians, though, can be ambivalent. Can you have a modern, forward-looking country if you are trapped in a past of tartan, piping and shortbread, is the question some ask, fearing they look parochial if they tap their foot to the sound of a pipe. Confidence in your national identity can be shaky ground for the thinking Scot.

The simple answer is you can embrace both. Some even try to combine the old and the modern with piping in a razzmatazz fashion, such as the Red Hot Chilli Pipers. However, traditional piping is still flourishing, with more girls learning, thanks to lighter synthetic reeds and bags making playing the Highland bagpipes less of a Hurculean task.

Robert Wallace, principal of the College Of Piping in Glasgow, says piping has never been in a healthier position. He embraces the fact that modern bands such as the Chilli Pipers have popularised the instrument, but cautions there is more to the bagpipes than the flashy showbiz style of some players. Naturally, as a college principal, he still wants excellence of playing, dress standards and the quality of the instruments kept to the fore.

What does worry him, though, is the quality of some of the busking heard on the streets. The Herald's former political editor Murray Ritchie, a proud Scot if ever there was one, was driven demented by the bad piping outside his office in Edinburgh's Royal Mile, often threatening murderous deeds as he tried to write while Flower Of Scotland rang out below for the 20th time.

Robert's solution is that councils should insist on buskers possessing a performance certificate. "You hear a lot of bad piping on the streets," says Robert. "It would be wrong if that was people's introduction to pipe music."

As he says: "There is no hiding place with the pipes. Everyone hears your mistakes."

So what is the continuing appeal of the pipes? You don't, after all, have to be Scottish to enjoy playing them. The College Of Piping, particularly in the summer months, has many students from abroad.

Part of it is the social aspect. Most pipers start off in pipe bands, where you have the shared camaraderie of travelling to competitions, visiting places you would never otherwise visit, and sharing with your fellow bandsmen your contempt of the judges that day. For the older player there may even be a shared pint or a whisky. Robert played down the drinking aspect by insisting you can't play the pipes while drunk. However, I was speaking to him over the phone so I was unable to gauge his facial expression.

I remember a reader telling me about being at a Burns Supper where the piper leading in the haggis and the guest who welcomes the haggis were being served a dram. On this occasion the guest was teetotal, so one glass had whisky while the other had cold tea - but they got them mixed up.

Said our reader: "The look on the face of the teetotal guest swallowing whisky was memorable - but not half as memorable as the face of the piper who swallowed the tea."

Also in Scotland just now is the Edinburgh Tattoo, where the highlight for thousands of visitors is the lone piper on the castle battlements at the finale. The mournful sound holds the audience spellbound, something a Scottish politician, media pundit or even panda can rarely do. So time, perhaps, for Scots to enjoy the bagpipes without worrying if it is unfashionable. The joke really would be on Scots if they couldn't see they had something unique and pleasurable on their own doorstep.