Last weekend, whilst on a trip to London, I found myself in a former bacon factory in Kennington. Now I know what you’re thinking, but I promise my behaviour isn’t getting rasher.

Long since used for anything related to pigs or pork, meat grinders all closed down, the redeveloped industrial site includes a space currently used as an art gallery.

Last weekend it hosted work by a pal of mine, Dane Sutherland, who grew up in Portsoy and Macduff, went to Banff Academy, and now works and curates in London under the name ‘Most Dismal Swamp’.

Despite the rather esoteric moniker, he’s never forgotten his roots. His work retains an underlying ‘Doric-ness’, either through hints of language or little cultural clues embedded within his films.

Often they remind me of things we’d laugh about when we were teens, or in Aberdeen in our early 20s.

For me, it’s a real honour and a privilege to see his work held in such high esteem by his peers in one of the world’s great art cities, at what was jam-packed – or hampacked, as it might be at a Bacon Factory – opening night.

It’s also a very close reminder of the quality of art and artists which can be fostered in the........

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