READERS of a certain vintage will be familiar with the 1982 chart-topping hit, I've Never Been to Me, in which the singer Charlene regales with stories of global gallivanting.

One such memorable line: "I've been to Georgia and California, and anywhere I could run". Before lamenting: "I've been to paradise. But I've never been to me."

While idly perusing a map the other day, there came a startling realisation: I've been to Georgia and California. But I've never been to Dundee.

Now, I appreciate that's up there with trying to fathom why on earth the band Genesis would reform. There is no good reason. Not visiting Dundee is like someone saying they have never tried pasta. Or breathing.

I should state early doors that I've nothing against Dundee. Quite the opposite in fact. Making my lack of acquaintance all the more peculiar.

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I'm no stranger to exploring our fine nation and its many nooks. Over the years, I've visited Leuchars, Cupar, Scone, Coupar Angus, Errol – each practically within spitting distance of Dundee – yet, Dundee itself, a mere 80 miles up the road from Glasgow where I type this, remains elusive.

Given it is known as the City of Discovery, this is an irony that even Alanis Morissette could appreciate. It's as if someone has drawn a big red circle around the boundary. An exclusion zone. Close but no cigar.

Not for me the joys of jute and jam (to be fair, the third J – journalism – would be a bit of a busman's holiday). I haven't posed for an arty, filtered shot beside the sleek lines of the V&A Dundee, an Instagram staple up there with The Kelpies and Skye's Fairy Pools.

Nor plonked my backside on the bucket beside the statue of Oor Wullie at The McManus. There's been no marvelling at Scott and Shackleton's famed Antarctic expedition ship or sampling a mixed-origin meat delicacy from Bob Servant's Broughty Ferry burger van.

Oddly, as a child, I long dreamed about going to Dundee. I would sit at my gran's kitchen table, drinking mugs of sweet tea and mainlining KitKats as she recounted spine-tingling stories about major events from history. The one that always captured my imagination was the Tay Bridge disaster.

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Morbid curiosity told me I'd like to see that one bridge one day. In the decades since, I've climbed high on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, sailed beneath New York's Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and driven across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco with the wind in my hair.

Traversing the River Tay has proved a bridge too far. This needs to be rectified post haste.