I HAVEN’T done a strict comparative count, but June felt like the busiest month we have ever had on Northings, with a seemingly endless stream of reviews added to several features, and all reflecting an intense month of arts activity around the area.

CONCRETE evidence of how the current recession is impinging on the arts has been all too evident in the past few months, but if any conclusive proof were needed, the cancellation of The Outsider festival surely provided it.

WE HOPE you are finding your way around the redesigned web site, and approve the changes we have made to the design and functionality, both in terms of the surface look and in the way the site operates. With any luck, I’ll even get to grips with it all myself in the not too distant future …

ASSIDUOUS visitors will have noticed that we missed our usual first of the month changeover this month. Our apologies to anyone who arrived on the site in the first couple of days expecting to find a new lead interview, but the delay was to allow us to finish the initial nips and tucks on a new look for the website.

BACK in October 2007, I interviewed Judi Menabney, the Principal Cultural Officer at Highland Council, about what was perceived to be potentially damaging cutbacks in Highland Council’s programme of Arts Officers (then about to be re-designated as Cultural Officers).

WE FIND ourselves one month into the new year, and also to the Year of Homecoming, the latest Scottish Government initiative aimed at selling Scotland as a visitor destination by appealing to all those “affinity Scots” – their term, not mine – around the world.

THE EVALUATION Report on Highland 2007 published last month by the Centre for Cultural Policy Research at the University of Glasgow presented a predictably mixed picture on the effectiveness of the project in generating visitor numbers, economic activity and publicity (and let’s face it, artistic achievement was not why the then-Scottish Executive cooked it up in the first place).

SNOW is falling gently as I look out the window, a reminder that Winter is fast approaching, and with it a rather different look to the arts scene. The big outdoor festivals which have becomes such a significant part of the summer are again behind us, but that does not mean that the arts – or even festivals – are about to go into hibernation.

IT HAS to be said that the immediate prognosis for arts funding is not great, and with the London Olympics and Glasgow Commonwealth Games likely to swallow huge chunks of any available money for the next few years, the longer term scenario is not exactly rosy either.

THE FESTIVAL season is drawing to a close now, with Hydro Connect just squeezing into the last weekend in August, but September has two more big events on offer. Blas 2008 kicks off on 5 September with concerts in seven of the eight areas it serves, while this year’s Loopallu follows later in the month.