The blue line being painted down the side of the window frame was as straight as a die. At the time the brush was in the hands of young Lisa Murphy, a second year apprentice painter and decorator with City Building - the City Council’s arms-length construction company. I met Lisa in March this year at City Building’s training centre.

That was when the coming billion pound merger of City Building and Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) was announced. The numbers promised then were hugely impressive. 2000 jobs in City Building would be guaranteed for decades, including guarantees for more than 200 workers with disabilities. On top 2000 apprenticeships would be secured. This jobs bonanza was costed as worth almost £3bn by the time 2050 approaches.

The Wheatley Group is the parent company of the GHA. For over a decade City Building have been carrying out all of GHA’s housing repairs. At the end of last week the dotted lines were signed to finalise the merger between Wheatley and City Building. That’s a bumper Christmas present for all the workers involved. But there’s more festive good news on the joint venture Christmas card.

Compared to the original estimates calculated earlier this year, the new joint venture board is now looking at a balance sheet that will be worth a billion pounds more. That’s the way the business has grown since March. We’re now on course for the joint venture being worth £4bn instead of £3bn.

And there’s more. Last month the esteemed Fraser of Allander Institute revealed that City Building supports a turnover of nearly £325m a year across other companies in Glasgow. So building the success of the joint venture will deliver like success to a host of businesses well beyond the boundaries of the City Building / Wheatley merger. So plenty of Christmas cheer in signing off the merger deal.

Mind you after the Scottish Government’s budget last week I won’t be ringing any Christmas bells for Finance Secretary, Derek Mackay. When he announced his budget last week, with all the aplomb of a 10-year-old trying to master lines for the school Christmas play, he tried to convince the people of Scotland he was a Holyrood Santa Claus.

Oh no he isn’t. When ‘Santa Claus Mackay’ had passed through all his own smoke and mirrors, and the numbers were crunched, it turned out that he was actually Scrooge incarnate. Even though the figures aren’t final it’s a certainty that Glasgow’s council budget will be faced by more and more cuts.

After last Thursday the gap between what the Scottish government gives Glasgow to spend and what it actually needs to spend just got bigger by tens of millions. That’s 10 years in a row of SNP cuts for Glasgow. Yes, 10 years.

But don’t just take my word for it here’s what the former SNP spin doctor, Alex Bell

said about Mr Mackay’s budget: “The SNP’s draft budget is presented as a gift cake – high earners to pay more tax – but has broken glass in every mouthful…The poor will suffer, services will be cut, jobs will be lost all because the Nats actively chose not to build a new land, but to make do and mend.”

If you believe Mr Mackay actually delivered a massive boost to local government funds you must believe in Santa Claus as well.

But in the spirit of Christmas let’s not finish on a churlish note. I’ve got a special tip if you are still in a panic about presents. You can never go wrong with a good book - so let me recommend my own book of the year, “Glasgow - the Autobiography”.

Its collected writings allowed me to uncover one gem after another about my beloved Glasgow. For example, I didn’t know that the great Frederic Chopin gave a recital in Glasgow’s Merchant city in 1848, the year before he died. Or that the title ‘No Mean City’ about Glasgow’s razor gang era comes from the apostle Paul - “I am a Jew of Tarsus in Cicilia, a citizen of no mean city”.

In one story the editor, Alan Taylor, tells of being offered a drink by a total stranger in a Glasgow pub and refusing. “Whit’s wrang wi ye?” came the question. By way of explanation Taylor replies that he has to catch a train as he comes from Edinburgh. “That explains everythin’” said the stranger.

Merry Christmas to you all!