Circle your calendars and pencil your diaries. Now we know. The independence referendum shall take place on Thursday September 18th 2014.

This changes nothing of course and yet it changes everything, for both sides. It’s real, it’s on, be galvanised or go home.

With every passing milestone I must admit I am more and more eager for this to be a Yes victory. Long gone are the days of watching this constitutional debate unfold clothed in the comfort blanket of ambivalence.

There may be nothing like the zeal of the converted but there is simply no shaking the sense that the country I want to live in would more likely evolve from an independent Scotland than from an enduring United Kingdom. 

Good luck to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but taking our place alongside the Denmarks, the Swedens, the Irelands and the Norways has a dizzying appeal that is too exciting not to grasp.

Genuine equality, combatting poverty and the way we treat our elderly are just a few areas ripe for reappraisal, by all Scottish political parties, if we can just wipe the slate clean and put into place easily imagined Scottish solutions for Scotland’s problems. 

Higher taxes in return for a higher quality of life and a more selfless society is my particular vision, I’m willing to take my chances with my Yes vote that that is what we’d get in the near future too.

It’s a narrower view than considering matters in a British context but that doesn’t make it narrow-minded. The negotiations after a Yes win won’t be pretty but that wouldn’t make them petty. 

Even the debate over whether we’d be richer or poorer after the ‘divorce’ from the UK misses the point. It’s who you want to fight for, what culture you want to bring your kids up in and who you want to get out of bed and contribute your little bit of GDP to that matters. 

Like so much in life, Sept 18th will no doubt come down to who wants it the most. Only 546 days to find who that will be, but I’m backing blue.