One of many jobs accomplished over the weekend was writing part of a suitably inflammatory press release to accompany the Kellie CD. I got myself successfully into ranting mode by reading Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn book, which not only takes a whole page to point out how great Dick and Dom are, but also has the funniest index I've ever read.

Today begins a fortnight of me moonlighting as an orchestral musician, sort of. Thankfully I start by playing in the SCO for Emmanuelle Haïm, someone who can bring the spirit of chamber music and improvisation into an orchestral rehearsal, no mean feat. For example, I'm not quite sure yet which of us is going to play the largely improvised organ solo in Handel's Ode for St Cecilia's Day, but it doesn't matter. Rather than being issued with instructions to write into the parts and follow, we're being treated as grown-up musicians and expected to listen, react, and gradually learn what might work. And she can change her mind! Fantastic! But tiring. In the band are a number of familiar faces, including Ursula Smith, back from Denmark to play continuo cello for a week. The singers come tomorrow, so tonight I've been sticking my scores together so that all the notation doesn't land in my lap at a crucial moment. I've been distracted only by a picture arriving in my phone of a nyckelharpa case on the London Underground. That'll be Katherine back from Sweden then.

Thanks to Roy, in Edinburgh I've found an instrument technician who professes an interest in reed organs, so before the week is out I'll take the Estey over there and leave it at the Queen's Hall for his attention.