This week in London I was sitting chatting to an American journalist. We laughed at mutually funny anecdotes, we swapped life stories and then he abruptly asked: ‘Do audiences understand your accent outside of Glasgow?’

Except he pronounced my home town as 'Glass-cow'. I looked him in the eye and said, ‘What the hell have you been hearing for the past hour? Were you pretending to understand everything I have been saying and just laughing in the right places?’

He frowned at my biting remark and replied, ‘Well, yes, I understand you, but maybe other people don’t?’

This made me so annoyed I shouted down the bar to the cocktail-shaker guy or whatever the technical term is for someone who mixes drinks. ‘Excuse me, can I have a diet cola, no ice and with a slice of lemon please and can I see your bar snack menu?’

The mixer guy nodded and started preparing my drink and passed me a menu. ‘He’s from Poland and he understood me fine!’ I snapped.

I have performed all over the world including New York, New Zealand, Holland, Toronto, Spain, and will be off to do comedy in Munich next week and although my accent is Scottish, that doesn’t make me indecipherable. If it did I wouldn’t get work on Radio 4 shows like ‘Just a Minute’ where language is the core of the programme.

It can border on racism when people assume that, because you are Scottish, you can no longer communicate with the world at large.

No one would dare say to an Asian-born comic who spoke English as a second language. ‘We can’t understand your Pakistani inflections; you should speak proper English.’ That would be deeply racist, yet these sorts of comment are regularly said to comics with some regional accents.

In comedy, Irish accents are well embraced, Australian comics are rarely questioned and Canadians can fit every bill, but the Scots? We have to practically go through a Professor Higgins-type interview and declare the rain in Spain is mainly on the plain!

Accent and language are very much part of the fabric of our identity and we should be proud of that. I refuse to apologise for the sound of my own tongue. I am Scottish and I will not change it for anything.

Having said that, my accent and language have transformed naturally over the years due to the changes in my own lifestyle and through accommodating audiences abroad who are not sure of the Scottish pronunciation. I slow down a bit, speak a tad more clearly and refrain from using colloquialisms.

I no longer speak as broad East End Glasgow slang as I did when I owned a bar years ago. I recently found an old VHS video of a party in our pub dating back to 1993 and I was amazed to hear my old voice.

Even I struggled to understand what I was saying to the camera! Apparently I shouted to the barman. ‘Goan get the box of connels oot o’ the lobby!’ Which, translated, is – ‘Get the box of candles from the hallway.’

I was strangely saddened that I had lost that old way of talking… when a ‘breed boax’ was a bread box and a ‘herr brush’ was a hair brush. It is important to be understood in my business as a comedian and actor, but I try to make sure I don’t lose the essence of who I am in the process.

If we comics all sounded the same it would be a dull world. Imagine Frank Carson telling a joke in a polite Home Counties accent. Or think of Billy Connolly on stage speaking like a posh, upper-class politician. It wouldn’t work, would it?

The diversity of our language makes comedy more wonderful. Just to hear a funny story with a great Geordie accent bending the vowels is a joy to behold. Johnny Vegas merely uttering the word ‘monkey’ is funny and made him famous.

I will be at the Soho Theatre this week performing my one-woman show ‘Tell It Like It Is!’ and it contains loads of humorous stories about my Glasgow family. People from all across the globe came to see it last year in Edinburgh and no one mentioned that they couldn’t understand me.

I’ll take the same show to New Zealand later this month. I’ve worked there before and I adore the place. In 2002, one of my gigs in Auckland was being signed for the hard of hearing. Even in sign language you come across differences of communication. When I opened my mouth and explained to the audience that I was from Glasgow. I saw the signer slap her right clenched fist into the open palm of her left hand and I gasped with sheer amazement. I realised that the sign for Glasgow is the universal sign for a fight – on the other side of the world, people who don’t even know how I sound are aware that I am from the wrong side of the tracks.

Funny is funny, despite the accent. I love being Scottish and Glaswegian. I refuse to accept that my accent will hold me back and I know that my celtic roots are embraced across the globe. This was confirmed when I met the wonderful actor Viggo Mortensen, famous for his ‘Lord of the Rings’ character Aragorn, at the recent Bafta awards.

We both walked outside the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, he offered me a light for my ciggie and, as soon as I thanked him, he smiled and said. ‘Your accent is wonderfully sexy; you must never lose it.’

Well, if Viggo loves my accent, who am I to argue?