Fabulous guitar busker in Chelmsford earlier today.
Busking ..... apparently ......
Modern busking had its origins in performances of itinerant minstrels of the 12th and 13th century.
The word busking was first used for performing music in public in 1776.
The computer pioneer Charles Babbage hated all forms of street music, especially organ-grinders and in the 1860s ran a campaign to ban them.
Charles Dickens agreed and wrote that he was “daily interrupted, harassed, worried, wearied, driven nearly mad, by street musicians.”
In the 19th century there were more than 1,000 organ-grinders busking in London.
The earliest record of a law against buskers was in Rome in 462BC making it a crime to sing about or make parodies of the government in public.
...... bring on the parody!