It is a long standing theme at this blog that the English really are different, for example, that PG Wodehouse was a documentary writer, not novelist, that there is something slipped into the collective water to make this island race both glorious and absurd, capable of conquering half of Africa and insisting on wearing woollen vests while doing so. (Dependent upon one’s view of conquering Africa either can be the glory or the absurdity.) So it is with great joy that I note that some of this essence seems to have rubbed off on our Celtic cousins to the north, the Scots:

Fed up with the artistic acclaim that has greeted his Botswanan
detective novels, Alexander McCall Smith has forged an alternative
career as the principal bassoonist for The Really Terrible Orchestra.
As a musician, the creator of The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency has the
perfect qualifications for an ensemble describing itself as a "showcase
for the wealth of mediocre talent with which this country abounds".
After only six lessons, his woodwind teacher emigrated.

The orchestra itself operates by some rather different rules:

Different individuals choose their favourite key, time signature and tempo seconds before Sir Richard raises his baton.
Written
scores are discouraged because they can be distracting, especially for
those who claim to read music. More proficient musicians would find
this cavalier approach a barrier to excellence. But such is the RTO’s
musicianship, a blatant disregard for the composer’s instructions often
leads to a quite brilliant exhibition of awfulness.
If
a player has the misfortune to become too proficient, they will often
take up another instrument to preserve the balance of the RTO.
Prof
McCall Smith’s wife, Elizabeth, is a case in point. As a talented
flautist, she graciously agreed to take up the E-flat horn instead.

They have even commissioned pieces especially for themselves:

Richard Ingham, a tutor at St Mary’s Music School,
Edinburgh, was commissioned to write a piece for the RTO on condition
that it did not include any C sharps.The reason for the unusual instruction was that Prof McCall Smith is incapable of playing that note.Sir
Richard Neville-Towie, the RTO conductor, believes that the C sharp key
on the author’s bassoon has become redundant because he insists on
attaching the instrument’s harness to it – a theory that Prof McCall
Smith rejects vociferously.

There we have it, undoubted proof that the centuries of oppression to which the Scots have been subjected at the hands of the English has paid off. They appear, at least some of them, to have grasped the point of what it is to be civilised, both noble and puerile, artistic and incompetent, communal and individual at one and the same time, devoutly amateur, in short, how to be English.
Now, if we can just get the Welsh to understand……