WITH a deft flick of the wrist at each turn, the chap is doing an excellent job of cleaning a window. His hand-held mop has a plastic blade which removes wayward suds with great precision. "Would you be interested?" he asks a passing middle-aged woman. "Do you come with it?" she replies. "'Cos I'm not washing any windaes." They're a tough act, the Glasgow audience.

It was a bank holiday weekend, and not everyone was relaxing in a deck-chair. Some 40,000 people were instead perambulating the halls at the SECC for the Ideal Home Show, the current incarnation of the late lamented Modern Homes Exhibition which used to be one of Glasgow's most well-attended events. The old exhibition, started in the Kelvin Hall after the war to help aspiring newly-weds decorate their homes, died in the nineties. As The Herald reported: "Fierce competition from city centre shopping malls and out-of-town retail parks has led to interest waning in the show, which attracted about 250,000 people at its peak in 1985. Fewer than 100,000 attended last October's show."

So now instead of a lengthy two-week plus exposition which became hard to sustain interest in, there is a sharper four-day event at the SECC. There are sumptuous sofas, stunning kitchens, jacuzzis, garden tables with in-built gas fires, and a "green" home made of stacked modules. But what I really want to know is, are the old showmen still there? The old-style barkers who would attract crowds by flashily showing the latest kitchen appliances that could reduce a pile of vegetables to displays of unusually-shaped morsels in seconds. How many housewives bought such devices, dreaming of the dinner parties they would give, and then left them unmourned in cupboards once they realised how long it took to clean them afterwards.

I do hear one chap shouting. "This is like nothing you've ever tasted," he cries with enthusiasm, even though the statement is ambiguous. "It's like going to a restaurant in Naples," he continued. That's better. It's Glasgow outside, but inside he is evoking dreams of romantic meals in the heat of Italy. He is in fact selling a pizza oven. A stand-along circular piece of kit that costs £100. You could fly to Naples for that and find out for yourself. Tasty free sample I have to admit.

I move on. A woman is hesitating at another stall. "You'll need to get in quick. We're selling out fast," the stall-owner is murmuring to her. What? Unless he is flogging Shakespeare First Folios, I'm fairly certain there ought to be enough supplies of what he has to offer.

But where are the demonstrations? Apart from the window cleaner, another chap is selling toilet brushes. Well not brushes as such but a plastic flexible spade which replaces bristles. Fortunately he is not actually cleaning a lavvy - he has instead a television with a film of its efficacy, while he watches from a chair.

Finally I see a true performer - a woman selling wraps that holidaymakers can wear when they leave the beach. She twists and folds the cloth in front of you in seconds, first making a short skirt, then a long dress, then what could have been culottes, such is her magician's skill. Women are dreaming that if they buy it they will transform themselves into Princess Grace leaving the shore at Monaco, rather than shaking the sand out of it at Troon while shouting at the weans to grab the dog.

Now that might seem old-fashioned, but the Ideal Home Show has technical innovations undreamed of at the old Kelvin Hall. Young handsome people are flashing great smiles while selling teeth-whitening equipment. There is a fifteen-minute demonstration. You sit on a bench, and a white plastic tube is brought down from above your head, and you stick it over your teeth while it polishes away. I watch one man sit there with an anxious look on his face as if he is just working out that his family has done a runner while he sits there immobilised. You shouldn't laugh at Glaswegians trying to improve their appearance, but his startled demeanour of an animal stuck in a trap would put a smile on anyone's face.

My next free offer is an ice cream cone from Golden Charter, which coyly advertises "Later life planning". It's selling funeral plans, and making financial decisions for your old age. Ed, one of the consultants, admits the ice creams helps attract people as few folk want to stop and discuss their funerals. Good ice cream though. I'm still licking away as Ed asks a woman what financial plans she had made if her children put her in a nursing home. "If the kids don't look after me I'm leaving it to a stray cat," she replied. As I say, tough audience. Next door to Golden Charter is Prostate Scotland. "Your will and your willie all at the one place," says another passer-by.

I spot John Amabile, the cheery Scottish interior designer. You see, the Ideal Home Show has celebrities such as John, Amada Lamb and George Clarke - folk off the telly - who put on demonstrations, suggesting what people should do to make their houses more presentable. The crowds love it.

So I ask John why folk should visit, when they could just click on stuff on their computer. "You really have to sit on it or try it on," he says. "You have to get up close and personal. A sofa might look good in a picture but be as comfortable as sitting on a tea chest. Here you can try everything out." Any tips, I ask. "We're moving away from chrome, creams and grey. Gold and brass are becoming popular. I would never have said that five years ago," says John. "Don't be afraid of colour," he adds. He's right. I see blue fudge which is bubblegum flavour. Can't be that bad for you, can it? Especially as I can sit like a wally and have my teeth brushed afterwards. I tell you, this is still a great day out.