The continental adaptor arrived and the little green on the transformer came on when it was connected to it. When I plugged the mains lead into the Pianobox its 4 numbers lit up. But I couldn't get its autodrum to play - and it wouldn't take MIDI instructions from the Dhorn. I read the instructions very carefully - all the right changes happened in the 4 numbers as I pressed different buttons. When I turned the volume up full it made a suitable background noise suggesting the pre-amp worked and the DI socket worked OK with the signal put in coming out. I am trying to remember the different MIDI pitfalls that I have encountered previosuly but nothing obvious has occurred to me. So it looks as if I may be making use of the money-back option. I managed to establish that one of my audio leads has broken - rather than the socket on the laptop - and so I was able to hear more of the frequency range on various CDs eg All You Can Eat where the bass turned out to be quite important to the languid atmosphere kdl is after. I think this new lead is performing a lot better than its predecessor did even before it brok. Aquanote came up well too.

I scanned around a bit for a plan B. I wondered about Magix Samplitude Music Studio 15 which is available at nearly half price through Amazon. Version 16 is available for over �100 - the cheapo 15 option appeals rather more. This would mean relying on the dreaded software synthesizers. I found a free download of a Magix music product and I read some of their blurb about the top flight users of the software. The words made a better impression than the music software which was very much for beginners. That said the effects seemed to be OK.

Wire sent another message - including something about an evening of talks on the Blow Up exhibition. I watched the record-breaking tennis for a bit and caught the end of it.

More guitar practice - developing the JJ lick - and So What. This seems to be more satisfying than fiddling about with anything more sophisticated. IPPR sent a new report about developing green jobs to soak up unemployment.