Twelve bar begging... a crime against neighbourliness, or just music? Photograph: Linda Nylind
As an 18-year-old disturber of the peace, I once took it upon myself to upset Londoners by busking - convinced as I was of my nascent musical talent, and the goodwill and generosity it would unleash in anybody lucky enough to come into contact with it. When I entertained the residents of Covent Garden with renditions of Hoochie Coochie Man - which could now get me arrested for its reference to Gypsy women telling my mother she'd got a bun in the oven, I thought I was doing the poor pyjama-clad bugger a favour by accepting his £5 buy-out to clear off for the night... it was quite early by the way. It turns out he had every right to order me from the street - and that I should count myself lucky to have walked away richer and un-truncheoned by a peeler.
The reason I am recounting this shameful story of juvenile 12-bar begging is that parliament is set to abolish its 1839 law enabling aggrieved residents to tell itinerant musicians to go and play Sultans of Swing elsewhere. According to justice secretary Jack Straw, the repeal of this law is necessary and overdue.
Every now and then, the law has a cull to remove its more superannuated statutes, thus creating space in the book for new ways for the jackboot of state to stamp on our faces forever. It's nice to think of Straw leafing through the parchment by candlelight, rubber and quill in hand, erasing here, scratching in there. I hope he wears a periwig when he's about it. For every smoking ban, something has to go. If I use the word palimpsest do I get a prize?
Sadly, after the latest cull, it will no longer be illegal for your servants to consort with ruffians, even if they are being plied with rum in order to find out the whereabouts of your silver; the building of workhouses and the setting up of turnpikes on public highways will become considerably easier, and most significantly, from now on I will be perfectly within my rights to play Yellow Submarine on your village green, and you will no longer be entitled to throw a bucket of water over me... even if your name is Mills.
Of course, I am sure that there are modern laws to deal with busking far more comprehensively than the 1839 act. It might even be legal to shoot buskers now under new anti-terror legislation. On the other hand, Jack Straw was a bit of a student strummer himself, so perhaps he's being nice for once. I wonder if he realises though, that in making space for new laws, he's just re-legalised the dog cart?
