Returning to work after nine weeks of parental leave is perhaps bound to make one feel a little gloomy. Moving from the intricate problems of playdates, soft play, Lego, nappies and the quandaries of Messy Goes to Okido and back to reporting life was likely to be a bit of a bump.

I thought that in my time away, one of the big questions of Scotland's cultural landscape may be answered, one way or the other. But no, Scotland's national film studio is, it seems, no closer to being built - in Cumbernauld or anywhere else.

Talks with an interested party, we are told, are at a "critical stage". When something is described as critical, it's not usually good news. I was a little surprised that Westminster's Scottish Affairs Committee, which met in Glasgow this week, did not ask Fiona Hyslop, culture secretary, about the film studio. After all, it is not just a Scottish issue. A new studio in Scotland would affect those in Belfast and Wales, not to mention the big studios in England.

There is, as we have been told, the problem of avoiding issues with Europe's problematic "state aid" rules on funding - although state aid was the category of money given to T in the Park so controversially by the Scottish Government.

I could see why some made a big deal of that deal, and how it was made. But to other observers, the government sitting on the sidelines while Police Scotland and Glasgow City Council shut down one of Scotland's most important arts and cultural centres, The Arches, was also worthy of note.

The Arches is gone forever, an entirely avoidable debacle with long-term consequences.

And the major story for the next six months? Winter is coming. This means some good things - Celtic Connections, for example. But in general, it will be a bleak picture when Ms Hyslop and Creative Scotland look into the state of future finances.

No one is expecting the Spending Review of November 25 to bring glad tidings for anyone. Creative Scotland, which receives its funding from the Scottish Government, is bracing itself for cuts in resources. It will be late December or early January when the body knows how much it has to spend on arts companies, theatres, festivals and individual artists - it looks likely to be substantially less.

The same squeeze will also affect the national collections - museums and galleries. And with Scotland's council's facing an estimated £2billion "financial black hole" in the next two years, local authorities support for the cultural world will also be under stress. Ms Hyslop will make the case for cultural spending within government. An external campaign will probably also need to emerge in a season of stark portents.