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I found the Guardian's blog horribly compelling on Wednesday as news flooded in from all over the country about winners and losers in the Arts Council's latest funding decisions under its National Portfolio Scheme. Locally we saw good and bad news for contemporary visual arts venues.

Nothing for CCANW, which has worked so hard over the past five or six years to establish itself in Haldon Forest and will continue to fight the good fight, despite this setback. And nothing for Taunton Brewhouse, which is already suffering at the hands of Somerset Council's irrational 100% cut to its arts budget. Great relief, however, to hear that Exeter's Spacex and Phoenix both received modest increases in funding.

Further afield, I was sorry to hear bad news about Manchester's Castlefield Gallery, who support emerging artists in the North West - and even supported a show I co-curated in Devon by providing us with a collection point for work. It's ironic that, at the time of Big Society, grassroots organisations that were created using hundreds of hours of voluntary labour are being allowed to wither.

There's a lot of whingeing from some quarters about why the arts are getting any funding at all in the current crisis. The economic arguments about the excellent level of return on government investment in the arts are well rehearsed, so I won't repeat them here. But if you really want to see me jump up and down, try the (usually Tory) line that says if art is of any value, people will pay for it voluntarily out of their own pockets. Yeah right.