Iain MacDonald BBC Scotland

Back in 2003, Good Morning Scotland sent reporter Iain MacDonald off round the highways and byways of the country to document the Scottish parliamentary election campaign.

Now, four years on, he is doing it again. Older - but not wiser - this is his weblog of the 2007 Tour of Scotland.

It's Lothian Road in Edinburgh and they're doing something strange to the Usher Hall which necessitates putting up "nurse-type" screens around it.

We had planned a live broadcast from there, but that's out. So, a quick recce and we find a spot on the Plaza just across the road from which to mount a broadcast.

Politicians are asked what can be done about Scotland's booze culture

And a man in a uniform turns up to enquire what we're doing there.

He's concerned that our car might "hurt" the plaza and takes a note of our number in case we drive off with more of our fair share of road dust on the tyres. It's an adventurous life, on the election trail.

My subject matter over the last few days has been alcohol. Strangely, people seem to find that incredibly funny.

But it's taken me to a couple of bars around the country - which is not, to be honest, a terrible trial - but also to the Dark Side of Drink.

Glasgow City Mission has a wooden building called "The Shieling" on McAlpine street in Govan.

As the gentrification of the riverside - to which the BBC is already contributing - continues apace, the Shieling, and a scrap metal business across the road, is just about all that's left of McAlpine Street.

Society's net

They've knocked everything else down, but the Shieling - which was supposed to be a temporary building when they first put it up about nine years ago - is still there. For a reason.

Because this is where the people come who've fallen through society's net. Some of them have a problem with drink and drugs.

The BBC's new headquarters is re-shaping the Clyde

Ask Joe, a case worker at this church-based shelter, what proportion of the people he deals with are drug addicts and what proportions are alcoholics, and he can't answer.

The older guys - and girls - he says are generally struggling with alcohol problems.

The younger clients have drug issues.

But some of the younger ones try to kick drugs by taking to the booze. And in the end, they're just hanging from two hooks instead of one.

Some nights there are 60 or 70 people at the Shieling, seeking respite, rest or just food.

There's a fully equipped medical room next to the communal canteen and sometimes there are runs to hospital for people who're seriously unwell.

Life for the people who work here is seldom dull. For their clients it can be worse than that.

Life for the people who work here is seldom dull - for their clients it can be worse than that Iain MacDonald Toothy issues on election trail Meeting voters on election trail

Joe tells me about one guy who used the services offered by McAlpine Street until very recently.

Let's call him Jack - well, Jack lived a life saturated by drink. Nobody knew when he'd turn up next, what he would have to say - or where he was between times.

He tried, says Joe.

He got a certificate from a college. He made the effort. And then one time, just a couple of weeks ago, when the booze had got him again, he tried to intervene in a fight in the city centre - somebody hit him, and he fell and bashed his head.

Another user of the Shieling was there. He tried, too. He checked Jack's pulse.

Off duty doctor

He tried the kiss of life and was laughed at by a passing girl who thought he was snogging his friend.

He ran into a shop and begged to use the phone to call the ambulance. They said no - to a dishevelled, incoherent person they probably thought was trying it on.

He ran back to his friend and tried artificial respiration again.

Then someone tapped on his shoulder - an off duty doctor, who could - and did - call an ambulance and get Jack to hospital.

But he died anyway - and those lost minutes may have been the difference.

Still, says Joe, he's proud of Jack's friend and Jack's friend should be proud of himself.

The shipyards once dominated the River Clyde

But pride is probably not a common commodity down by the soon-to-be-gentrified Clyde. Here at the Shieling, it's mostly about despair and a life lived on the edge.

Joe says there'll be more clients for the Sheiling - and more Jacks - until somebody does something.

Like stopping the sale of cheap drink, often in sparkly colours that don't look like alcohol, and give no hint of where this stuff can take you.

But he's not optimistic.

And Stuart Valentine, who's the chief executive of Glasgow City Mission, says he doesn't anticipate they'll be working themselves out of a job soon.

At Edinburgh's Lothian Road, Tom Wood, who's the former deputy chief constable in Lothian and Borders, says he believes the politicians - and the public - are beginning to wake up to what needs to be done.

Out of sight

Come the new parliament, he believes, steps will be taken to deal with a problem that reaches into lives of many more people than those who come to the Shieling.

Sometimes the Shieling sees people in suits, too.

Down by the Clyde, when the gentrification has stopped, and new state-of-the art office blocks take over from the bomb site that is McAlpine Street right now, the Mission will still be here.

Just behind the new developments. Out of sight maybe, but not out of mind.

This city needs it. As Joe says, we're the people who pick up the pieces.

Later, I'm on the A9 north. At the end of last week, it was the "grey vote" and those older folk who resent being parcelled up together in a 40-year ghetto.

This weekend it's the young voters - and those who're not quite of voting age - quizzing politicians. And people like me. God knows what the organisers think they'll learn. I'll keep you posted.