Busker

I had just bought a cup of coffee from a stall when he started playing. Normally, I'd just walk on but I had this hot cup of coffee and I can never drink whilst I'm walking and he'd just started playing something which I half recognised and I was trying to work out what it was. He was playing the intro and I was trying to fast-forward it in my head to get to the point when the words started so that I could go "oh, that's right - it's so and so!"

Anyway, he's playing, not bad actually, and when he gets to the tune, I still don't quite get what it was but it sounds OK and his voice isn't too bad - sort of Paulo Nuttini or McCartney doing "Oh! Darling" on Abbey Road so I'm still listening. And this very thin old lady comes up and starts singing something. It's not the same song and it doesn't go with what he's singing so he sings a bit louder but she carries on. She's got a sort of high voice that isn't that loud but you can still hear her over him.

She's standing a little bit away from him and the couple of people watching are doing that not quite laughing thing and he stops singing but he keeps playing, but a bit quieter and he takes a couple of steps so that he's standing next to her. And she's still singing - you can't really make out the words - and he's playing quietly and you can see that he's trying to hear what she's singing and play along with it. It doesn't quite work but it sounds sort of OK. And then she stops singing and looks a bit surprised and he stops playing and then he claps and we - the two or three of us - we clap too and then he shakes her by the hand and then - and this bit makes me think that he might be foreign even though he didn't sound it when he was singing, then he kisses her on both cheeks and she smiles at him and stands there for a minute and then she walks away.