About Pauline McLean

I'm Pauline McLean and I'll be bringing you my view from the South Bank... of the River Clyde.

I've been BBC Scotland's arts correspondent for 11 years now - definitely one of the more pleasant jobs in Scotland.

Unlike newspapers, where I spent most of my early career, radio and television require you to meet your interviewees in person - so I get to travel the length and breadth of the country too.

There are plenty of behind the scenes stories - which only my closest family and friends normally get to hear about - but this blog might allow me to pass on some of the little snippets and insights that don't always make BBC news.

A bit about me. I've wanted to be a journalist since I was 14. At 15, I persuaded the editor of one of the two local papers in my home town of Dumbarton, to give me a job, freelancing on the Flourish, the monthly newspaper for the archdiocese of Glasgow.

These days, it's a priests-only operation but back then it had a string of lay-people writing and I got the chance to write about everything from church fetes to anti-drugs campaigns.

Realising, even at that tender age, the restrictions of the genre, I lobbied the other local newspaper editor for a job and got myself regular holiday shifts on the Dumbarton Reporter for the best part of five years, while I did a degree in English and Scottish literature at Glasgow University.

In 1989, I landed my dream job - while still studying at university - as pop columnist for the Evening Times, writing a weekly column about the Glasgow pop scene.

Endless gigs, LPs (it was a long time ago) and interviews with all my favourite singers - among them Eddi Reader, Sharleen Spiteri, James Grant, Edwyn Collins and Roddy Frame.

I was ousted by Bryan Burnett - but I forgive him as I would never have got my degree otherwise.

I did a postgraduate in journalism at University of Wales, College of Cardiff, returned to Scotland for a couple of years to work in local papers, and then returned to Wales for five years to work for its national newspaper The Western Mail.

I was arts editor there in 1997 when at least seven of my friends faxed or posted (no e-mail then!) the advert for my current job - the first full-time arts correspondent in BBC Scotland's history. I got the job, and the rest is my history.

I'm married with a three year old son, so life is a little hectic, but I hope to be able to find the time to share some of the behind the scenes stories of my job.