BUSKER CONVICTED OF BEGGING

Well ... I'm not sure what to say to this but I have to say something because busking was very very good to me as I was looking for a job.

In fact, I was so comfortably off from the streets that when I *did* get a toehold in London publishing, I had to give up the morning and lunchtime shift with consequent drop in income, bank manager called me in to ask if I'd been fired and I had to tell him,

"No, sir - I've just got . a job."

But I did keep it up during most evenings and weekends, leading to an enemy reporting me to the News of the World who sent round a sizzler of a girl in a slit skirt who got a sizzler of a story out of me under the heading, "He's a Toff by day and a Busker by night."

My boss at the time was a gritty Londoner who'd been their best rep and regarded prawper-talking chaps like me and Nigel Hollis as poofs and layabouts.

When the NoW piece came out, he had every rep on the phone,

"So is this our  Chris? Flippin' hell, Vick, why dincha tell us? And us 'n' all treating him like some public school wooftah."

This is stupid and vindictive and along the lines of the Oxford undergrad who took advantage of an ancient law and lugged a cask of beer into the exam room. Next day, *he* was nicked for not wearing a sword with his gown, another unrepealed ruling that a sharp-eyed proctor had spotted.

But I'll tell you who'd be capable of ploughing thru old statutes for this kind of thing: PCSO "I don't believe you" Pudding Jowels

COMMENT FAIL: Good try by Sinbad to 'comment' a family foto past the censors but this particular post is all about hardass minstrelsy.

For everyone else who won't see it, nice cosy pic showing

Handsome son chiseled off the old block

PCSO daughter making up for it by wielding a cigarette.