FED UP WITH BREXIT?

READ on. Here’s a quick guide to some excellent diversions for the first few months of the year. For instance, if you need a bit of escapism you can do no better than follow the example of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and read a good book.

Books by Scottish and Scotland based novelists due out in the near future include Spring, Ali Smith’s latest in her beautifully written seasonal quartet. Thrill seekers could try some literary crime with Big Sky, a new Jackson Brodie novel from Kate Atkinson. For non-fiction fans, Melanie Reid follows her excellent biography of Gregor Fisher with a book called The World I Fell Out Of, about her own challenges after a horse-riding accident left her tetraplegic. A book that is particularly apt at the moment, given the number of former public schoolboys making a mess of running the country, is the Engines of Privilege: Britain’s Private School Problem by Francis Green and David Kynaston, due out in February.

TOO TIRED TO READ?

THEN you are in for a treat with the TV winter schedule. Humour will definitely be required to get us through the next few months and this should come in spades with the latest – and sadly the last – Still Game series which will be part of the launch of the new BBC Scotland channel in February. Also on the BBC, even though he says he hates it, is Alan Partridge who will also be back next month with a One Show-style current affairs programme. Expect prime Partridge from Steve Coogan.

Humour is in short supply in Game of Thrones but fans are eagerly anticipating the last series, due out in April. Some of its most memorable scenes such as the brutal Red Wedding are based on events in Scottish history and there is certain to be more medieval murder and mayhem in the six episodes.

PREFER A MOVIE?

THERE is a lot to look out for this year at the cinema, beginning with a biopic about our own Mary Queen of Scots due for release on January 18 and starring Saoirse Ronan as the ill-fated Scot and Margot Robbie as her vengeful cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England. The movie, filmed partly in Scotland, has received generally favourable reviews although it has been criticised for some historical inaccuracies. Scot James McAvoy makes a welcome return to the big screen alongside Samuel L Jackson and Bruce Willis in psychological thriller Glass, also due out on January 18. Comedy greats Stan Laurie and Oliver Hardy are brought to life in a biopic filmed in the UK and which can be seen in cinemas from January 11. It will surely include the time they were mobbed in Glasgow. Steve Coogan and John C Reilly play the duo. The Favourite, currently on general release starring Olivia Colman as Queen Anne, has drawn very good reviews and is from art film auteur Yorgos Lanthimos.

WHAT ABOUT MUSIC?

WHERE to start? For folk fans the biggest event of them all is Celtic Connections which kicks off in Glasgow on January 17 and runs until February 3. Featuring artists from around the globe alongside the best Scottish talent, household names include Rhiannon Giddens, Cherish the Ladies, Graham Nash, Niteworks, Elephant Sessions, Bokante, Loudon Wainwright III, Judy Collins, Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes, Kathy Mattea, Shooglenifty and Aidan Moffat & RM Hubbert. From the world music scene the festival will welcome Delgres, The Como Mamas, Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita, Mariza and Bassekou Kouyate.

In opera this month, the award-winning team behind 2016’s The Devil Inside returns with the world premiere of a Scottish Opera commissioned work, Anthropocene. The fourth collaboration between composer Stuart MacRae and librettist Louise Welsh, this gripping new work tells the story of a team of scientists trapped in the frozen Arctic wastelands.

Meanwhile the Scottish National Orchestra is performing its Viennese Gala in Inverness, Langholm and Dunfermline in January.

IF THAT’S NOT ENOUGH

THERE’S plenty going on in the theatre world and art galleries to get you through the dark days of winter. Scottish Ballet is staging Cinderella at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre, moving to the Theatre Royal in Glasgow next week before going on to Aberdeen and Inverness.

At the Scottish National Gallery there is the annual display of Turner watercolours, while Burrell at Kelvingrove in Glasgow is a rich collection of medieval marvels that draws on the strength of the Burrell collection.

Pantomimes are still running at many of the theatres in Scotland just now but the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh has a Cajun night on January 12 when the Jennifer Ewan Band joins forces with The List Hot 100 spoken word theatre company, Poetry Circus for an evening of moves and grooves.