We call him Nazi Bob. Once a month, I get my haircut at Bob’s salon. "Short back and sides, but long at the front, Bob, so I can do a Morrissey quiff." I come home and tell my wife and kids about Bob’s latest outrages. "What do you think of the hairdo, girls? And by the way, Bob intends to invade Poland." Bob's flirtation with extremism has grown in intensity. He started small but by last weekend he’d gone full Führer.

I chose Bob’s salon as I’d fallen out of love with my Turkish barbers. A new scissor-lord had taken over a chair and I kept getting him. He was a decent chap, from Iraq, and I liked his chat, but he was dreadful at his job.

Not only did he almost pull my face off when he performed that sadistic wax-up-the-nose-on-an-earbud thing that’s somehow become popular, but he was a pancake at barbering. On a good day, he made me look like a ripped cinema seat, on a bad day I resembled an abused haystack.

So I thought I’d give Bob a whirl. I mentioned how disappointed I was with my old Turkish barber when I first plonked myself in Bob’s chair. And so it began. Bob got right into playing a hand of poker - all with race cards.

It was the usual "coming over here stealing our jobs" stuff. Though his Reform routine was rather undermined by the fact that Bob is continually turning customers away as he has too much work.

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I can’t stand that type of racist crack, but to be honest, in Glasgow, you’re used to it. If I refused a ride each time a taxi driver sounded like a member of the BNP, I’d have walked home from the pub every Friday night for the last 30 years.

Plus, I grew up in Northern Ireland, in a "mixed" family. One half would happily have killed the other half. In Northern Ireland, you’re inured to the most blood-curdling extremist chat. So I’m reasonably deft at handling folk who hold opinions that give me the boak.

And honestly, I loathe this idea of folk surrounding themselves solely with people who think like them. That’s the road to intellectual oblivion. I’ve as many Tory mates as I’ve socialist mates. And actually, often the chat is better with folk who are your polar opposite. Nor do you have to talk about politics and religion all the time. So as long as you're not Hitler or Pol Pot, I’m pretty easy-osey about hanging out with you.

So I decided to tolerate Bob. Rather than get into an episode of Question Time and debate Bob every time he started his Tommy Robinson carry-on, I just changed the subject. When he wasn’t on immigration - or women as I later discovered - Bob seemed "okay-ish".

But slowly Bob morphed from "slightly racist dude" into full-on Nazi. As months went by, immigrants weren’t just coming over here and stealing our jobs, they were raping our kids, Bob said.

I’d ask Bob which kids, where this happened, but it was always "a mate told me", or "I read it online". Turns out, Bob "does his own research", most of which comes from Patriotic Alternative.

Then Bob got really weird. I’ve travelled a fair bit and he started asking me which countries he should go to for sex with African women. Those were the very words. His question came straight after telling me how disgusting Africa was - how poor and backward.

"Let me check, Bob, are you telling me you think African countries are horrible, but you’d like to go there to have sex with African women?" Yip, that’s his plan. Remember, this is the fella locked in a fever dream that immigrants are raping every Scottish woman in sight. So, there’s a wee taste of the old cognitive dissonance going on with Mr Brownshirt.

I considered dumping Nazi Bob there and then, as he was clearly a creepy wrong ‘un. But there’s always been a side to me that wants to stare right into the heart of something messed up in order to understand it. So I went back last weekend. Also Bob is very good at a Morrissey quiff - which evidently isn’t much of a surprise now.

A neo-Nazi group in Drakestown, Georgia, USAA neo-Nazi group in Drakestown, Georgia, USA (Image: Getty)

Bob wanted to talk about the summer’s riots. He was firmly on the side of the mob. "They’re misunderstood, Neil. They’ve got legitimate concerns." No matter the issue, when you hear "legitimate concerns", run - a maddie is on the loose.

Then Bob starts on small boats. "Maybe we should build concentration camps," he says. Well that was it, I’ve reported on extremism for 30 years so I took Nazi Bob to school. ‘You sound like Adolf f*****g" Hitler, Bob," I told him. To be frank - and forgive the pun - I gave Bob the hairdryer treatment.

"Neil, hang on, mate," he says. "I’m no racist." "Aye, Bob, whatever." If you walk like a duck (maybe I should’ve said "step like a goose") and talk like a duck, you’re a duck, pal. I usually tip well, sticking 20% on the bill for hairdressers. But Bob got naff all that day.

Bob wasn’t a funny story any more. It was no longer a case of "wait till you hear what he’s said now", but more a "this guy is dangerous - why have I been tolerating his crap?" Bob had gone in the matter of six haircuts from bog-standard Glasgow racist to someone who quite fancied the idea of concentration camps, while fantasising about going to foreign countries to exploit women.

I thought of what my grandad would have done. He was an old Cockney sailor who fought in the Battle of Cable Street alongside his Jewish pals against Oswald Mosely’s Blackshirts in 1936. The only good Nazi, my grandpa believed, was a … well, you know, he fought in the war, right.

I’m not a violent man, so in the interests of keeping it that way, I’ve decided Bob is now well and truly dumped.

Luckily, there’s another Turkish barbers nearby so next time I need a haircut, Bob can go whistle. Though the tune will probably be the Horst Wessel.

Neil Mackay is the Herald’s Writer at Large. He’s a multi-award winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs, cultural commentary, and foreign and domestic politics