On song II

A slight return to the subject of busking. As it turned out this week ended up offering a fair crop of budding troubadours, all of which were better than that violin woman, and all of whom stirred in me the desire to start performing again after too many years of silence. In no particular order I witnessed:

- a particularly robust and emotional version of 'Besame Mucho', replete with much nerve-jangling vocal acrobatics

- a bloke making a fairly passable hash of Eric Clapton's 'Tears In Heaven' (though I wouldn't want to have stayed to hear the whole thing)

- the inevitable 'Wish You Were Here', though frankly anybody can sing that better than Roger Waters nowadays, as Live 8 proved

- a man who'd frustratingly just finished playing a small harp (a proper orchestral harp to boot) who'll hopefully be back again next week

- and a man wielding some pan pipes and playing along to a tape machine. It sounded crap close up, but from afar it was quite evocative - especially as he was attempting this particular number.

Suffice it to say nobody was giving any of them any money, least of all the time of day. I guess one out of two on my part isn't too bad, though as far as the buskers were concerned, it was the wrong one.