Irvine Welsh wrote these stories, mostly, as he says in the foreword, for “those toe-curling Scotsploitation or drugsploitation anthologies that prevailed in the 1990s, for which I have to assume at least some culpability”. If he now calls them mere “reheated cabbage”, why should the rest of us bother to look at them? Well, there is a bit of false modesty going on here, and an element of critic-proofing, getting the obvious comment in first.

No doubt Welsh is playing a ­literary version of Cash in the Attic by dusting off these pieces, but presumably he does think they deserve another outing. As you would expect, they involve a certain amount of cultural tourism to the lower depths, undertaken with black humour. In A Fault on the Line, an Edinburgh idiot of the usual stamp, hustling his family home from the pub to catch the “fitba”, opts for a short cut across the railway tracks. His wife’s legs are swiped off by a passing express and his only concern is whether the hospital has a television so he can still watch “Hibs v Herts”, which turns out to be “another f****** nil-nil draw” anyway.

In Catholic Guilt (You Know You Love It), a homophobic Scots builder living in London dies of a heart attack and is doomed by St Peter to spend eternity buggering his best mates until he learns to like it. This one shows that Welsh can go all tin-eared when not writing in his trademark dialect. Joe the builder, pre-death, is chatting up his mate’s sister and she “sweeps her hair out of her eyes in that Sloaney gesture that, for all its camp, never fails to get the hormones racing”. Eh? “For all its camp?” Is Brian Sewell in da house suddenly?

In Elspeth’s Boyfriend, an Edinburgh idiot called Frank, whom you are meant to recognise as Begbie, the Robert Carlyle character from Trainspotting, takes a dislike to his sister’s fiancé over Christmas dinner at “ma’s hoose”. Dr No is showing on the box. “Mind you, no that I really agree wi havin some c*** fae Tolcross as Bond. There’s c***s fae Leith that could’ve done that joab jist as well as Connery.” The ear is working better here, and Frank’s psychotically contrary changes of mind and mood are well registered.

The Rosewell Incident is a rather good extended joke on an Edinburgh district place name. Aliens land, having unfortunately learnt all about earth culture from an Edinburgh idiot called Mikey Devlin, who they abducted for the purpose five years ago. So, instead of, “Take me to your leader,” it’s, “Shut it the now, Earth c***! Wir talkin serious business here!…They kin pit the polis on as much f****** OT as they like — this is the mentalist crew in the universe thir dealin wi here!” But outside the hilarious dialogue, we are back to pedestrian tin-eared recitative.

Kissing and Making Up is about an Edinburgh idiot getting head-butted by a pimp for touching one of his girls. That’s it. The State of the Party and Victor Spoils are nondescript generic pieces about Edinburgh idiots getting off their faces and swearing a lot. The last story, I Am Miami, is not reheated cabbage but a new novella, about a retired, uptight Edinburgh schoolmaster who, on holiday in Florida, encounters two idiots he used to teach and decides they aren’t so bad really. It all ends with hugging and learning, which comes as something of a shock. Welsh’s relish for degradation covers up a strong sentimental streak.

Reheated Cabbage by Irvine Welsh
Cape £18.99 pp288

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