Another 8 bars tonight, in the Usher Hall. Really enjoyed it. 

Speaking of musical economy, on Friday I had a rare experience worth recounting.  When you work in the subsidised arts, there is a never-ending stream of people, usually salaried arts professionals rather than artists or patrons, who will provide you with advice and suggestions on things that you could be doing.  'Why don't you do X?' 'We could fund a project along the lines of Y.' 'Wouldn't it be great if Z?' It goes without saying that none of these people will ever have to do any of the actual work involved in the making of X, Y or Z, so their suggestions are easy to make and relatively meaningless. Talk is cheap, after all, and it's one thing to have an idea, quite another to make it happen.

But on Friday I had a meeting with Cathy Hirschmann of the organisation Arts and Business which as its name suggests, brings together arts people and business people.  And I was describing the various things I do, and one particular project which I felt was overdue.  'No', she said, 'you don't need to do that. You haven't got the time.'  It's the most perceptive and cheering thing anyone's said to me about my work for as long as I can remember.  If I had any undying devotion to spare (which I haven't), I would have pledged it to her there and then.