Barry's Beef

Now this really is a long overdue entry into Room 101. It's not all buskers. Although, I am not a big fan of the institution of buskers, I can recognise that some deluded sociopaths do like them and feel they offer something different from the regular mundanity, frustration and delays that remain the main services rendered by the London Underground. If you see a busker, you have an option to walk past or to give them money. This is fine. The people I would put in Room 101 (hurtling headfirst) would be buskers on the actual Tube itself.
Twice last week I was accosted by a clarinet player on the District Line. Twice this guy peddled out a few numbers and twice I got nowhere near recognising any of it. Hint to budding, aspiring clarinet players: if you get near a note, play it. In fact, it really was a pain in the neck. By nature, I am not the greatest in the morning. Ideally, I will either do a sudoku or two, or more normally read a book. You know, have the decency to keep myself to myself. So what do I get for my troubles? Some prick making a racket, that's what. I can't read my book. I am stuck there with a deep and all consuming hatred and loathing burning in my heart. Then when he has finished, he comes around the carriage with his purse - pausing in front of every passenger and rattling it (his purse). Now I take exception at charity collectors shaking their tins in my vicinity, I most certainly do not appreciate the clarinetist doing the same.
And then on Friday, I had another busker on my tube. Not a clarinet player (this is good) but rather an Irish duo playing the bloody bastard banjo and singing jovially. At least the clarinet player had the decency not to be able to speak the Queen's. These characters have the patter, right down to every stereotypical nuance: the cheeky smile, the banter, the "bejeesus" - seriously they were one stop away from "top of the morning" and a full-blown riverdance. These wankers persisted for two whole stops. I felt lower than a snake's belly. After they eventually wound-up, about 3 people clapped. In the words of Alan Partridge: "I loathe these people[...] I wish all of you[...] people would get on a bus and just drive over a cliff. I'd happily be the driver."

Labels: Alan Partridge, busking, London Underground