Anyone who has been in Northumberland Street in Newcastle recently will have seen two of the most shit buskers it has ever been my displeasure to come across in my entire life. This is a shame as Northumberland Street is frequently an excellent venue for buskers — I’ve seen some wonderful solo saxophonists, for example — and it would appear many youngsters/students pitch up on a saturday morning, and play a little music to entertain people.

You don’t have to be a brilliant musician to entertain the crowds. You just have to try; have to have some vague idea that you know what you’re doing, and appear to be enjoying yourself, and this will usually be enough to improve the shopping experience of nearby people, which might well result in me giving you some money.

Only not the two I’ve seen the last couple of times.

First, there’s the younger woman. She’s sat, frowning, on a chair. Next to her is what I can only describe as a mechanical contrivance. It’s basically three wooden mannequins (carved puppet-y type things) attached to pieces of wood, which are obviously powered by some sort of battery, and wave their arms backwards and forwards next to the little wooden musical instruments they are holding, while a tinny backing track drones out the sound that we are supposed to think they are making.

And this woman is just sat on a chair, next to this, doing buggerall. Did she make it? I don’t think so — if you had the talent to do that, you’d not be needing to busk. Really, I can’t see any difference between me turning up with Queen’s Greatest Hits on an MP3 player and sitting next to that being played expecting to collect money.

And then there’s her face: I’m not saying she’s ugly — she isn’t, but even if she was that wouldn’t be relevant here — but it’s so sour-looking. It’s got that “I really resent having to be sat here” look. Which isn’t exactly going to encourage people to want to contribute money, which is something she really ought to be doing with because as far as I can see, she’s not actually doing anything to deserve it.

In fact, the busking experience was so bad that I was tempted to stop to take some money out of her hat, as I felt I deserved some credit for having to walk past that. Come to think of it, if other people had been doing that, this could explain her sour expression…

And then further down, I met shit busker #2; the granny from hell. I don’t know whether the two of them were related, but there was certainly a family resemblance in terms of their attitude. I’m going to describe Hell’s Granny as a Romanian busker.

This is probably entirely inaccurate, but I’m just trying to give you a mental picture, and you know all those old films from Eastern Europe (and/or places like Greece), where the old peasant women wear a lot of black clothing, with a black headscarf, who seem to consist almost entirely of wrinkles, and are generally seen sobbing and wailing in the films because their son has either been killed in “The War”, or by “The Count”. Think as stereotype as you can.

Right. That is exactly what she looked like.

She is also sat on a seat, and she’s playing the guitar. Sorry; that is a bit inaccurate. She is holding a guitar. With one hand, she is holding the fretboard/neck area of the guitar. Note the use of the word “holding”. She is making no attempt to actually use this part of the instrument to regulate the pitch of the guitar in any way, shape or form.

Next, we’ll look at the guitar tuning. I think the guitar is out of tune. It is difficult to be entirely sure however, because she’s simply strumming through all of the strings, top to bottom, in no particular (or even consistent) time. There’s no attempt to ever pick out any individual strings: no plucking, no nothing other than the constant, but inconsistent, awful out-of-tune strum.

There is another reason why I’m not entirely sure whether the guitar is at fault. Normally, when I see someone strumming the guitar, they are using their fingers, or, infrequently, I’ve seen people do it with a plectrum. I have never before seen someone strumming a guitar with a one penny piece before. Which is part of the reason why I can’t be entirely sure the guitar is out of tune.

So you’ve got someone who can’t play the guitar, isn’t even trying to play the guitar, clearly doesn’t know what they are doing — and couldn’t care less; looks miserable and sour-faced and is producing an awful caterwauling noise that is disturbing and unpleasant to the ear.

Again, I was tempted to take some money out of her hat, but I doubt there was actually any in it…

I’ll just recap: I’ve nothing against buskers. I’ve nothing against buskers who aren’t very good. I do however have something against buskers who are absolutely fucking atrocious and can’t even be bothered to try. I’d have rather they just sat there with a sign “no musical talent: please give generously”. At least there would have been some honesty there…