Is it too early to be looking forward to the middle of 2014 already? Just had a quick look at www.glasgow2014.com and pretty excited by the prospect of the Glasgow

International visual-arts biennial

in April directed by former Frieze Foundation curator Sarah McCrory. The biennial will see McCrory punctuate spaces across the city with works by all kinds of fabulous artists – check out the link above.

The aforementioned cultural tourism extravaganza PLUS, Perch, an aerial cum street-theatre show will take place in Queen’s Park from 23 July, and screenings of a new film by Turner Prize nominee Phil Collins are being loosely linked into the fact that Glasgow’s to host the Commonwealth Games this forthcoming summer – I wonder how many battered Mars bars will go down come 4 August when all the athletes hang up their spikes!?

Who knows, who cares… I just have the feeling that between this and Hull winning the Capital of Culture bid it has never been less grim up north – fact! Nice one, North!

P.s. Break up the journey en route from the Deep South with a trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Hepworth, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

P.p.s. This isn’t a brag – just funny, I’m writing this from a beach in Mauritius and updating my husband as I type, he just commented with a comedy sigh, “You can take the girl out of Yorkshire…”