Buskers. Good to see the Council of Elders welcoming them into the town.

I see in the small print it says there's a limit of four at any time. Squire Derek is gutted cos it rules out his fave band: S-Club 7. They will never play Hadleigh's streets. On the plus side, he says, Busted are still in with a shot.

I was always one for encouraging street performers back in the day. As long as they sang my praises, obvs. Protest singers got short shrift. Thanks to my 'gag 'em and drag 'em' policy.

Squire Derek tells me it's different now. People can criticise their betters without fear of recrimination. Gotta say, slippery slope. Next thing you know, the peasants are revolting.

Anyway, this buskers thing reminds me. I got chatting to a couple of pale youths with guitars on the Market Square the other day. They wore black and said they were Goths.

"Oh", I said. "Ostrogoths or Visigoths?"

Just Goths, they said.

They looked me up and down. "Going by your outfit, you must be into Nordic metal", one of them said. "You like Lordi? You know, from Finland. They won Eurovision. 'Hard Rock Hallejuah'?"

I said I'd never heard of them. They noticed my Scandinavian accent. "What about ABBA?", they smirked. "Roxette? Ace of Base?"

I didn't know what to say. Felt a right Björk.

"Oh, I know", said the other. "You must be in that Boudicca Border Morris group, right? You just done a gig?"

"Boudicca?", I said. "Big fan, but she was way before my time."

"Then what music you into?" they asked.

I was stumped. Not gonna lie, I haven't kept up with the trends. Not since Gregorian chant. You can't tell me that's music.

Had to think on my feet: "Ragnarock?"

They both nodded. They starting playing. It sounded awful. Shame, if I coulda got three more people to join 'em they could've been banned.