I was born in Perth. I went to school in Perth. I married in Perth, divorced in Perth, and remarried in Perth to someone I met while trying to find the South Inch. I have lived here, man and boy, for four decades. And I am finally ready to admit something: I do not know which Inch is which.

I know there are two. I'm fairly sure of that. One of them has a golf course. One of them has a car park, a playpark and occasionally a funfair that smells of onions. One is next to the river. Both are next to the river? Is one of them next to the prison? I genuinely could not tell you, and I've been to both of them hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. Maybe they're the same Inch and I've just been walking round it in different moods.

People say, "It's simple, the North Inch is in the north." But north of what? Perth is in the north. Everything is the North Inch if you're standing in Kinross.

My wife says the South Inch is the one by the station. But I've been to the station, and I've looked around, and all I saw was a man eating a bridie and some pigeons. There was grass, certainly. Was it an Inch? It was at least a centimetre.

Every year I tell myself I'll sort it out. I'll get a map. I'll ask a council officer. But I'm too proud now. If I ask, people will know. And they'll tell their friends, "Did you hear? Forty years and he still doesn't know the Inches." It'd be all round Tesco by teatime.

So I've accepted it. When someone suggests meeting "on the Inch", I simply say "lovely", go to whichever is nearest, sit on a bench, and wait. Sometimes they find me. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes a different person turns up and we have a perfectly nice chat anyway.

And isn't that what Perth is really about? Not knowing exactly where you are, but being quite content about it. Aye. That'll be it. Now if anyone could tell me which one the Inch I'm sitting on is, I'd be grateful.