HAVING begun last month with a comment on the demise of a major music festival planned for the region, it seems only fair to acknowledge the successful way in which RockNess has become established as a national phenomenon in the years since the first festival took place in 2006.

FESTIVAL season is upon us again, and while there is plenty to look forward to, the proposed two-day Rock4Life event has now been cancelled due to poor ticket sales.

These columns have struck a rather pessimistic note of late, and there is a bit more of that to come below, but what better antidote to the gloom over the parlous state of arts funding than a bit of Laurel & Hardy, courtesy of the late Tom McGrath and Mull Theatre.

GUITARIST Graeme Stephen was pointing out to me the other day that whenever he is involved in a Tune Up tour, it seems to snow. He won’t be disappointed this time, then, when he takes his excellent contemporary jazz sextet and special guest Ben Davis on the road in late February and early March, including dates in Perth, Inverness and Banchory.

Apart from the usual extravaganza that is Celtic Connections down the road in Glasgow, it has been a fairly quiet start to the new year – and a new decade – in the arts around the Highlands & Islands, particularly on the touring front, although Eden Court did host both Scottish Ballet and Off Kilter.

WHERE did 2009 go? It hardly seems any time since I was last writing the final editorial of the year. It has certainly been a busy one for arts in the Highlands & Islands, and we have covered more events than ever before in the course of the year, despite the very real difficulties facing artists and promoters in what are still very straightened times.

THE INVERNESS WINTER FESTIVAL 2009 got off to a rocky start when a single complaint about a Jolly Roger flying from the flagpole on the Town House led to the removal of the “offending” item, apparently on the grounds that it gave succour and support to Somalian and other latter-day pirates.

I BEGIN this month with an apology. In September, Northings ran a review of a reading of George Gunn’s play Fields of Barley in Thurso. I received an e-mail from John Cairns, writing on behalf of both Grey Coast Theatre and Caithness Arts, strongly objecting to what he saw as “an attack on the use of Caithness dialect”.

THE SUMMER may be wearing on, but there is still plenty going around the area. The Blas Festival takes pride of place this month, with Blair Douglas’s much anticipated Gaelic Mass heading a busy programme.

AS DAVE SMITH’s cartoon reminds us, if it’s August it must be the Edinburgh festival extravaganza again. Kicking off right at the end of July with the Jazz Festival and taking in the full razzmatazz of the International Festival, the Fringe and the Tattoo, it will be a month of colourful mayhem amid the uncollected rubbish in the capital.