IT'S standard fare to start a column on the benefit of the arts with a sincere anecdote about what the arts mean, personally, to you.

Everything, really. Which makes it very hard to pick just one. Childhood ballet classes have led to a valuable lifelong passion for dance, both doing and watching, and all enriching.

School orchestra has been the foundation underpinning a love for live music while cinema... I mean, don't get me started on cinema. All of these have led to transformative, valued friendships, which cannot be underestimated as a glorious side effect.

There are places you enjoy and places your heart belongs. The Burrell Collection I enjoy. Kelvingrove Art Gallery, my heart belongs. It was one of the first places I remember my mother taking me when we moved to Scotland and, with the fiscal grip of childhood, I'd imagined a grown up life where I would buy it and live in it, reading novels in the turrets and eschewing the stairs for sliding down the wide marble bannisters.

Now, though, I realise it would be selfish to bar visitors so I just hang out there a lot, and don't mind that other people hang out there too.

If I'd known Glasgow City Council was planning to sell it to an arm's-length external organisation then, of course, I would have stepped in as a benevolent buyer but I learned of its availability too late. City councillors have given such firm reassurances that Kelvingrove, and the other buildings involved in the council's variation on remortgaging, are perfectly safe. But it feels discomforting to have such a vital art institution used in the "sale and leaseback arrangement" when there is so much bad news about the arts.

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Sir John Leighton, director-general of the National Galleries of Scotland, said the arts body is looking at a crisis that is going to cause a "severely reduced offer, with national and international programmes reduced, different patterns of opening hours and partial closure of sites".

As galleries struggle with how to "keep the lights on", he told MSPs, access to the country's art collections will be restricted.

The priority, Sir John added, was to merely "keep the lights on and doors open" and nothing more. To survive, essentially.

The chief executive of Museums and Galleries Scotland, Lucy Casot, told Holyrood's culture committee that the current crisis is the worst facing arts spaces in 30 years, as they battle across multiple fronts: a fall in visitor numbers, the rise in fuel costs, and the cost of living crisis.

She described how galleries are taking desperate measures to make savings, such as discontinuing buildings and contents insurance – an unconscionable gamble foisted on desperate organisations.

Cosla, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, warned that because arts funding is not ring fenced at a local authority level there is no protection for funds for these services.

Other spending pressures take priority. Cosla named teacher numbers, the 1140 hours of early learning and childcare commitment and new legislation to supply period products. "Cuts fall disproportionately on unprotected areas," it said.

Cinema has most publicly felt the brunt of these hard times. After a run of stories about threats to large multiplex chains, the headline news was the end of the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Filmhouse in Edinburgh but the collapse into administration of the Centre for the Moving Image - the charity behind the EIFF and the cinema - also saw the closure of Aberdeen’s Belmont Filmhouse.

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The experience of the pandemic has shown that once something is lost, it is hard to get back.

Cinema comes in the multiplex experience, where cheap tickets feed into the acceptance of off putting behaviours. It might have been that the pandemic showed us the value of what we'd lost - but when it came to smartening up cinema etiquette, reports of the reinvigoration of decent manners were greatly exaggerated.

At independent cinemas, the social mores are adhered to - but not perfectly - but their appeal is curated film seasons and accessible cinema screenings but they are thought of as elite spaces and not for everyone.

Cinema can't win. For those who aren't dyed in the wool cinema fans it is an art form so very readily replaced because of the ease of recreating the experience at home. Multiple streaming services with endless film choices are there at your fingertips. You don't have to travel any further than your sofa to see the latest movies with all the snacks your heart desires. You can talk, scroll on your phone and put your feet up on any seat you like and for a minimal cost.

Shawlands, on Glasgow's Southside, was named the eleventh coolest place in the world this week. On reading about the history of the area I found an interesting paragraph on cinema attendance in the city. In the early 20th century Glasgow had a grand total of 139 cinemas and residents of the city went to the cinema an average of 51 times a year. It was an open access pastime because children's tickets could be paid for with a “jeelly jaur”, a clean jam jar. It's hard to imagine a time again when your average person would be going to the movies once a week.

A writer for a London publication wrote recently about how, if she had £1 billion, she would open up a chain of buildings on UK high street's called Space. They would have phone chargers and free wifi, areas where people could simply come in and sit without being expected to spend any money.

They would be warm and safe and have access to toilets.

We used to call these places "libraries" and you could find them general all over Britain. Now a library is a threatened thing, no longer a space for books but a place to be commodified and made useful in a diversity of ways. That's not necessarily bad - we have to move with the times - but it is sad. All of this is desperately sad.

Institutions are barely off their knees following the Covid-19 pandemic and are now freshly hobbled by the cost of living crisis and inflation. When you are in fight or flight mode it is imperative to prioritise the things necessary for survival – the things more likely to be ringfenced by politicians and prioritised by struggling families.

An eye must be kept on the decline in the arts, though. People need food and shelter but they deserve spiritual nourishment and beauty also. This economic calamity, too, will pass and we must be mindful of what we will be left with at the upswing.

While Western donors have stumped up significant funding for a programme to make Covid-19 vaccines in Africa, activists say more support is needed to help poor countries secure the intellectual property rights they need to produce mRNA vaccines beyond the pandemic. Grants and loans from Western countries, including France, have driven momentum for a "made in Africa" vaccine.​​​​​​The World Health Organization's programme to produce mRNA vaccines for the global south is well-funded at 80 percent

A boy, 9, and a 67-year-old man have been rushed to hospital after a crash between a car and two pedestrians - which left the boy with a fractured skull.

A road has been closed after a car is thought to have rolled over.

Drone footage released by Lee County Sheriff’s Office on October 14, shows extensive damage to the Island Park area of Fort Myers, Florida, more than two weeks on from Hurricane Ian.Personal belongings can be seen stacked in piles outside houses, many having suffered roof damage.At least 58 people have died and two remain missing in Lee County, Florida, after Hurricane Ian hit Fort Myers, the county’s Sheriff’s Office said on Friday.The force had conducted 4,866 well-beings checks since September 27, the update added. Credit: Lee County Sheriff’s Office via Storyful

Jeremy Hunt was preparing to delay Liz Truss’s 1p cut to income tax on Saturday night, as the Governor of the Bank of England praised the new Chancellor’s decision to tear up the Prime Minister’s economic plans.

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There's no denying it's becoming more expensive to go on holiday - especially during peak periods. But the good news is there are still plenty of late deals on the market if you look around.

As Jamie Lee Curtis leaves behind her character Laurie Strode in Halloween Ends, she tells Melissa Nathoo what's like to say goodbye to the franchise and on wishing she was in Rian Johnson's Glass Onion.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has hit out at what he called the "grotesque chaos" of chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's sacking, as he accused Liz Truss of putting "party first and country second". Giving a speech in Barnsley after a day of upheaval in Westminster, Sir Keir said the damage caused by last month's mini-budget was "unprecedented" as he repeated calls for a general election. "This lot," Sir Keir said.

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Mee Kuen Chong, 67, was allegedly murdered and her headless body dumped in the woods.

Supermarket chain Aldi is planning to build a new store in Glasgow with 35 new jobs.

A stealthy Komodo dragon leapt 6-feet into the air to snatch a bat from a tree branch right in front of a photographer in Komodo, Indonesia on October 8.

The Duchess of York has posed for a series of photographs with Queen Elizabeth II’s corgis, describing them as “the presents that keep giving.”

The actor didn't hold back in her views on the new Chancellor.

Two brothers have each been jailed for 40 years for the car-bomb murder of a top investigative journalist in Malta. George Degiorgio, 59, and sibling Alfred, 57, had denied killing Daphne Caruana Galizia in a blast as she drove home on 16 October, 2017. Anti-corruption journalist Ms Caruana Galizia, 53, was reporting on suspected fraud in political and business circles in Malta when her car exploded in the town of Mosta.

A document presented to the project’s board also warned that rising inflation is presenting a ‘significant and growing challenge’, it was claimed.