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So farewell, Anna Watt, last surviving sibling of the Scottish singing duo Fran and Anna.

Like most people, I first encountered them on the 70s variety programme Thingummyjig, where even the compere Jack MacLaughlin sounded like he wasn't sure if they were for real.

It was hard to tell what was more outrageous, their over the top renditions of classic songs - nothing was ruled out from Donald Where's Yer Troosers to Chanson L'Amour - or their costumes - mini-skirts and fishnets and quirky little hats, a carbon copy it seemed of the outfits they'd worn as child performers.

And while people mocked, others just couldn't look away. Sir Terry Wogan was left almost speechless by an appearance they made on his TV chatshow.

They were simply above irony.

Many cynical hacks arrived to meet them, prepared to stare in horror then return to write some cutting barb.

But most were completely disarmed by their absolute charm. How could you dislike two middle aged ladies who had such a joie de vivre and a passion for entertaining?
You also couldn't make them up.

Two showbiz sisters, born into a showbusiness family. Older sister Lily was already onstage as a pianist - she later became their manager.

Their father was a ventriloquist - and quickly put his daughters on the stage. His stage name was Valentine Prince, so they became the Prince Sisters, later Fran and Anna.

They were rarely seen out of costume. When I met them at dress rehearsals for a benefit gig for the now departed Jimmy Logan, they were resplendent in matching black macs, tartan trimmed berets and sunglasses.

Even their fellow performers can't recall seeing them out of costume or out of character. Their upbringing in variety theatre had instilled them with the belief that they should always look the part when meeting their public, whether that was at the stage door or in the supermarket.
In the 90s, by which point they were in their 70s, they still made appearances in the odd surviving variety show, but mostly were spotted, in characteristic matching costumes, at various funerals as the last of the Scottish variety performers passed away one by one.

Fran died in 2003, at the age of 81. Anna, the younger of the sisters said she couldn't imagine life without her.

Their singing act changed little over the decades. I suspect the costumes were pretty much along the lines of those they wore as girls.

And that made them beyond parody. Johnny Beattie and the late Jack Milroy were among those who tried.

Johnny said: "We'd dress up in silly wigs and costumes and sing songs like them but they'd just join in. They were absolutely lovely."

Creative Scotland - and its weary journey through parliament - was inevitably the subject dominating the conversation at the first public meeting of arts organisations and the new culture minister Mike Russell.

Traverse 1 was full to bursting with representatives from more than 100 organisations - music, opera, dance, festivals, film and broadcast, all noted.

It helped, that as former SNP shadow culture minister, he already knew most of the members of the audience.

But while it made for a slightly warmer reception, it didn't allow him to avoid any of the thorny issues. Like Creative Scotland.

For those who've drifted off while this new quango-not-a-quango has wound its way at snail's pace to the statute books, it involves merging Scottish Screen with the Scottish Arts Council, and won't be in place until next year.

This is a whole year later than planned, thanks to the Scottish Parliament voting the whole thing down last summer, due to their concerns over funding. Keeping up?

Anyway, Mr Russell was keen to clarify that it was now too late for turning back and he wouldn't be turning back.

It was, he said, a system desperately in need of reform but he assured the audience, it was still a work-in-progress.

If they had concerns they should make them known, he added.

Guyan Porter, who led the recent massive artist campaign about Creative Scotland, said he was concerned the new body had an expanded remit, but no expansion in its funding.

Mr Russell said he didn't think the remit was too different from the present one and that he'd asked both bodies to make savings in "backroom" costs, leaving more money free for frontline arts funding.

But he was under no illusions about funding in the current climate.

It was a fixed budget and organisations would have to work within that.

He was able to give an answer to another oft-asked question, whether the cost of setting up the new body would come from current arts funding.

No, said Mr Russell, it definitely wouldn't.

Marc Lambert of the Scottish Book Trust was anxious to know how arts organisations would make known their views - given the lack of communication until now.

Mr Russell said he envisaged regular meetings like this one - and the ones he held as environment minister.

He wanted, he said, robust debate but not a return to the endless consultations of the past few years.

"No more glossy documents, we've had our fill of those over the last decade," he said.

Angus Farquar, of environmental theatre company NVA, was worried Mr Russell's four-pronged focus on creativity, accessibility, opportunities and international possibilities only set them up for more form filling.

"It's a fine motivation but the problem is that we as artists have been jumping through hoops for years, trying to produce social and economic benefits and justify what we're doing," he said.

"We're a nation of great form fillers but not necessarily great artists. I think sometimes it's important to release money and take risks."

Mr Russell said he agreed entirely but hoped the new body would be able to take risks where required.

Broadcaster Lesley Riddoch wanted to know if new technology could improve audience access to Scottish culture. And was this event being podcast?

Former TV producer Russell stumbled momentarily and looked at the bank of cameras out front.

Yes, hissed his adviser, it was being podcast on the government's own website and would even be available on Youtube.

Whether he's the seventh culture minister - or the ninth - (two of them existing simultaneously at cabinet and junior minister level, hence the confusion) the latest incumbent is going to have his work cut out.

While Mike Russell faces hundreds of representatives from arts organisations in a specially arranged meeting at the Traverse Theatre on Wednesday, talks continue behind the scenes to try and secure funding for the Scottish Mining Museum.

A third of the museum's funding disappeared in one fell swoop with the news that Historic Scotland and Midlothian Council were withdrawing their contributions from this year onwards.

Midlothian Council - which has funded the museum for the past 13 years - argues that if the Scottish Mining Museum is truly a national museum then the Scottish Government ought to be responsible for its funding.

It'll be a familiar argument to Mr Russell, who when this issue last reared its ugly head, was shadow culture minister. The then Labour administration felt it had resolved the problem by giving all three major industrial museums - the mining museum, the fisheries museum in Anstruther and the three pronged maritime museum - national status as well as access to a pot of emergency funding.

What it didn't resolve was the long term needs of the museums when it comes to funding.

"They've been living hand to mouth since then," says Dr Jim Arnold, the chairman of the Association of Independent Industrial Museums and Heritage Sites in Scotland.

"Although we have national status and in New Lanark's case, world heritage status, the funding has not followed and that guarantees periodic crises - you can't get out of that and every major industrial site has that pattern."

The size and scale of the sites and the artefacts they look after means visitor numbers and income rarely match the cost of upkeep.

At the Scottish Mining Museum in Newtongrange, they're trying to secure an additional £2.5m of capital funding to restore and repair a number of A-listed buildings on their site. And without the guarantee of secure revenue funding, they have little hope of securing lottery money.

So what can they do? they could follow the examples of other mining museums in England and Wales, who've argued for central government funding along with their national status. Or they could consider establishing an independent trust, no easy matter in the current climate.

The museum's director Fergus Waters was typically upbeat when he spoke to me earlier. But there's no doubt time is running out, with the end of the financial year just weeks away, and no solution in sight.

The air turned blue in the normally refined atmosphere of the Glasgow Film Theatre this week.

Not thanks to the copious amounts of alcohol offered to guests in the auditorium at the start of the Glasgow Film Festival - but thanks to the much anticipated UK premiere of In the Loop.

Based on the cult TV series The Thick of It - it reunites many of the original cast and crew, only this time the action moves from Whitehall to Washington, where Tom Hollander's bumbling government minister becomes a patsy for both pro- and anti-war politicians.

Of course, there's one familar character to keep him in check - Peter Capaldi's wonderfully machiavellian spin doctor Malcolm Tucker, who inspired the title (he didn't need to be kept in the loop, he said, he WAS the BEEPING loop).

Malcolm, as his fans know, likes to use an expletive or two, hence the reason the film's director, Armando Iannucci had to apologise in advance to Peter's elderly mum, and the elder matriarch of his own family.

No apologies needed for the film, though, which translates brilliantly onto the big screen with its original British cast, firmly supported by a strong American cast, among them Mimi Kennedy and James Gandolfini.

Afterwards, the audience stayed in their seats for a Q+A session with the film's writers, director, cast and producers.

And Peter Capaldi admitted playing Malcolm is an occupational hazard.

"I stand in my kitchen ranting through my lines, it's a bit like being on a Christian Bale set, which is difficult because I have a teenage daughter and I can hardly turn round and tell her not to swear now," he says.

Chris Addison, who played Ollie in the original series and plays a similarly opportunist policy adviser called Toby in this version, says the title became even more apt as he circled Washington in a motorcade for a scene in the film.

"They were genuinely Dick Cheney's outriders," he explained.

"Apparently Cheney famously used it to go absolutely everywhere, even if he just wanted something from the shops.

"So there we were circling the White House in his motorcade and hanging out the windows, doing the scene over and over again, and everyone in Washington probably thought, what on earth is Dick Cheney up to now?"

For Armando Iannucci the premiere was something of a homecoming. He went to St Aloysius school, a block from the cinema.

"I remember missing double maths to come here to see Felicity Kendal," he recalls, "it was a big part of my school life and it's lovely to be back here particularly having the whole family along."

And the most surprising thing about American politics?

"Everyone is so young. We joke about it in the film but it's absolutely true.

"Do you know they sent a 22-year-old to Iraq to rewrite the constitution? That's quite a frightening thought and I'd never seen that portrayed in film before."

In the Loop is in cinemas from April 17th.

So another day, another culture minister - number seven since the Scottish parliament began.

It's been a mixed bag - from Allan Wilson and Frank McAveety, who both seemed more comfortable with the sporting end of their brief, to Patricia Ferguson and Rhona Brankin, both of whom continue their commitment to culture in their own constituencies (Brankin through her interests in the National Mining Museum and Ferguson in the ongoing development of Maryhill Burgh Halls).

So far, it doesn't feel as if any government so far has truly recognised the scale or importance of the brief.

It's not a full cabinet post but it's most recent reinvention as Minister for Europe, External Affairs, since it's personally answerable to the First Minister, at least allows the incumbent a direct line to the heart of government.

The ongoing merger of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen into Creative Scotland - whose messy transition so far seems to be the main reason for Linda Fabiani's departure - is a case in point.

A complicated plan in the first instance - which would bring together huge creative businesses as well as smaller non-profit making arts organisations into one great organisation - it's been further complicated by being passed from government to government, and culture minister to culture minister.

Almost 500 artists and performers have so far signed a petition against the way the merger has been handled - complaining they've been left in the dark about what it will cost, and how it will work.

The process has been further delayed by MSPs voting down the bill which would have established it (they had legitimate concerns about the costings) - and is unlikely to move any further forward until John Swinney's Public Services Reform Bill is considered later this spring.

That's the biggest headache but there are plenty more challenges ahead - from the predicted drop in corporate sponsorship of arts events to the ongoing campaign by Glasgow City Council to have its museum collections recognised as nationally important, and therefore eligible for central funding.

So no easy brief for incoming culture minister Mike Russell but at least he has previous experience - both as a full blown minister and as shadow culture minister.

As a former TV producer, he also has strong experience of the media, and a good understanding of the scale of the problems he faces as well as the benefits the sector can offer.

And no shortage of opinions either - which should make for lively times ahead.

So Titian's will remain in the National Galleries of Scotland, at least for the next eight months.

Details of the joint funding package were announced in Edinburgh on Monday morning - the biggest pledges coming from the Scottish Government and the National Galleries in London, who each offered £12.5m.

Interesting to note that only the Scottish Government was represented on the platform at the press conference (Westminster would presumably argue that since they fund the national galleries in London, their contribution was equal to that of the Scottish government. Although on the strength of that argument, the Scottish Government pledged closer to £17m because part of the package includes £4.6m from the Scottish galleries' acquisition pot.)

So why is the Scottish government so keen to play its part, particularly in the midst of a worldwide recession?

It may be that today's acquisition also secures the whole of the Bridgewater Collection for the next 21 years.

The 5th Earl of Ellesmere - later Sixth Duke of Sutherland - loaned the collection to the National Galleries of Scotland in the 1940s.

Every Prime Minister since 1945 has been briefed about the collection's cultural importance, and has to be informed if it is ever broken up or offered for sale.

With eight works by Poussin - in their own specially designed room - a Rembrandt, three Raphaels and the four Titian paintings, they raise Edinburgh's collection dramatically in terms of international art.

There were originally 32 Old Masters in the loan, but the National Galleries of Scotland acquired four paintings by Private Treaty in 1984 with funding from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

In 2003, they acquired another Titian - Venus Anadyomene partially in lieu of inheritance tax, so it is easy to understand the concerns of Labour MP Ian Davidson, who feels it's a lot of public money to shell out to the Duke of Sutherland - who's already one of the richest men in Scotland.

It's a difficult balance to strike in the current climate - not least since they're tied in to raising a further £50m for the partner painting Diana and Callisto.

Most of the people we spoke to on the streets of Edinburgh were quietly confident the right decision had been taken, although some questioned the timing.

It'll be interesting to see what the view is in other parts of the UK - with little access to the Titian.

And as for the latest publicly-owned artwork, it had a less than audacious start.

Sealed off behind the cordons of a media conference until 11am, closed to the public completely by lunchtime, along with the rest of the National Galleries complex on the Mound - the result of a burst water main on Princes Street.

We're told it'll be business as usual from Tuesday.