EVERY morning, after retrieving my dentures from the dishwasher, selecting the day’s wig, and performing up to two press-ups, I consult a news-aggregator website to find out what is happening on Earth, the controversial planet.

It’s a useful resource, which arranges news headlines by subject matter, usually stuff that I’m not interested in, such as Trump, Armageddon, Art, Lifestyle and so forth.

But you can also set up your own list of subjects and click on that for more of a focus on things that interest you, say – just to take a random example of a normal, well-adjusted person – Hibs, pies, Batman, and syphilis.

I, on the other hand, select the current affairs of various countries, just in case the Editor comes sneaking up behind me and says: “Hoy, big nose! What’s the current state of play in yonder Estonia?”

And I can confidently say: “Well, they seem to be getting on top of the syphilis situation.”

The thing that has been bothering me for some time is that, while the stories for most countries involve politics, the economy, or sexually transmitted diseases, under “Scotland: current affairs”, it’s nearly always violence or assaults.

This morning as I write, for example, two of the main stories were headlined “Mass brawl in Burntisland” and “Aberdeen man smashed pub televisions with pool cue”.

It’s like this every day, and it’s disappointing. Everywhere else it’s “World leaders convene for crunch conference”, “Troops sent to volatile border area”, “Major trade deal announced”. But in Scotland we get an inebriated Aberdonian going nuts with a pool cue.

The worst of it was I clicked on the headline to read the story and found that the man’s lawyer had described him as “a social drinker”. Only in Scotland would a man who smashed all the pub televisions with a pool cue (which he also deployed on the heid of a constable summoned to arrest him) be described as “a social drinker”.

It reminds me of Taysiders in Space, that Chewin’ The Fat spoof of Star Trek, in which a crew member goes to the holodeck, a virtual reality area that transports people to places of healthy recreation, such as an idyllic island, cowboy ranch, or maybe a mountain to climb.

But, on Taysiders in Space, the crew member goes to a pub in Dundee and smashes a bottle off somebody’s heid. Even when going to a real-life planet, they don’t set their phasers to “stun”, as in Star Trek, but to “malky”.

And the motto of the futuristic starship is “In amongst yese!” You can find the sketch on yon YouTube. I watch it once a week. Always makes me laugh.

Before that, readers may remember Russ Abbott’s creation, Jimmy McJimmy, also known as C.U. Jimmy. Dressed in kilt and Dr Marten boots, Jimmy, who mixed Windolene with his dram because it gave him clear eyesight, would get into conversations with people and, no matter how pleasant the other person or whatever their station, would always end up headbutting them.

Wonderful stuff, if the tourist industry’s nightmare: “Come to Scotland: it’s full of violent bams.”

Our literature is largely composed of crime fiction, though we’re not alone in that and at least ours is not as sadistic as the Scandinavian variety. But there’s always got to be a murder, hasn’t there?

My one attempt at the genre, where the crime involves a man getting done for having bald tyres, has been turned down by 23 publishers and counting.

Even in real life, our evening news television programmes are castigated for having the same focus: “Good evening, and in Scotland tonight it’s a’ murrdurs and fitba’.”

At the fitba’ our fans are not as other fans. When the ball goes out for a throw-in, you often see a sea of faces twisted with fury. One notorious Touchline of Hell is full of permanently enraged punters standing up and hurling abuse, or throwing the ball into the faces of players who come to collect it. You just don’t see this in other countries.

So, are we worse than everyone else? Does Scotland have a uniquely violent culture? Or is it just that we elevate “Man poked in eye after pub peanuts row” to top of the news schedule?

I used to think this sort of news agenda reflected the fact that we didn’t have an autonomous politics or economy, like normal countries. But you’d think, with devolution, matters might have improved.

Perhaps they have a little, in the sense that broadcast news has a new area on which to focus: “Sturgeon malkies Davidson in Brexit row.” But I look forward to the day when, on world news aggregators, our stories involve international diplomacy and major trade deals, rather than volatile individuals going doolally with billiards apparatus.