The fifth year of the Mackintosh Festival is launched this time next week in the wondrous House For An Art Lover, and Helensburgh now boast two venues for it, the venerable Hill House and the new kid on the block, The Mackintosh Club on the top floor of 20 Sinclair Street.

Both venues will have lots of stuff going on from the 1st to the 31st of October with the closing party in the Mack Club which will also be curating a small exhibition of works by those legends of the decorative arts moment the Glasgow Four – Charles Rennie Mackintosh, his wife Margaret Macdonald, her sister Frances and Frances’ husband Herbert McNair.

Guests at the final bash won’t have to wonder where the music is coming from. Thanks to Glasgow Piano City there’s now a baby grand nestling in the main club room. It’s one of 18 orphaned joannas which the organisation has donated to special sites from The Lighthouse to the Theatre Royal. Their inspired idea is both to rescue and restore pianos, and to make them available for the public to play. You probably saw a lot of them around the streets of the dear green place at the time of the Commonwealth Games a couple of years ago.

So if you fancy your chances as the new Ashkenazy you’ll be able to drop in and strut your stuff at the Mackintosh Club most days between 10 and 4. The deal usually is that the refurbished pianos are both christened and decorated – though that might seem an act of vandalism to an instrument which began life as a minor aristocrat.

However at least part of the tradition of Glasgow Piano City has already been observed. The new recruit to the Mackintosh Club is now named – what else? – Toshie.

Incidentally the National Trust for Scotland has flagged up a funding shortfall for repairs to the Hill House which may result in a fundraising campaign being launched. As a jewel in the local cultural crown it needs everyone to get right behind it.