Welsh is back. And while this collection of shorts may only be an appetiser for the real shot up the arm – the long awaited prequel to Trainspotting, due for release within the year – this isn’t microwaved stuff. With one new story and seven that appeared in one of those ‘toe-curling Scotsploitation or drugsploitation anthologies that prevailed in the nineties’, Welsh seems apologetic. And certainly, for the most part we are back in Leith.

Hibs vs Hearts games abound, men are more concerned with watching the ‘fitba’ than the legs of their wives, Begbie returns to share Christmas dinner with typical spit and plenty of fist, and there is enough acid here to rival Welsh’s first collection, The Acid House. The pick of the bunch is ‘I Am Miami’. This is a mature, older Welsh drawing out characters from a different world and mixing them with those monstrous others. Throw a retired schoolmaster in the same pot as the depraved, violent lunatic – ‘Juice’ Terry Lawson – put in a wee sound system gaun oon oot in Miami under the strobes an jist hing aboot fir the bang. Spice ay life, eh. Utter hilarity.