I have to say that I have many treasured memories of buskers and, generally speaking, they have enhanced my life.
Here in Manchester, where I live, they tend to be a feature of the city centre on a Saturday afternoon - and there have been some amazing ones over the years: a one man blues band (OK, my mate Rob), several Irish fiddlers, several bagpipers, several singer/guitarists, a group playing Balkan music, another group of Hungarian gypsy musicians and an extraordinary bloke who had a home-made pram contraption with dancing dollys and and a cunningly concealed tape deck for musical accompaniment and, most recently, an African man with one of those stringed instruments made from some sort of gourd - all amazing, all deserving of my monetary contributions and very little to do with begging.
On my occasional trips to foreign parts I have encountered other extra-mural musical talents: a violinist playing Mozart in the centre of Warsaw (whose music made me cry) and, in the same city, a man and a woman playing what may have been (I don't speak Polish) protest songs. In Athens I was on my way to work on the Metro when a man and a boy (Albanians?)jumped on amd began to play fantasic music on accordian and drum - I was so stunned by their brilliance that they had moved on to another carriage before I could give them any money!
In Bangkok I have a memory of an old man sitting on the pavement playing some weird instrument made of bamboo and in Bulgaria a fiddler produced eerie imitations of bird songs on his instrument and later in the evening playing Strauss waltzes with his mate on the accordian.
Buskers are an essential part of life's rich tapestry - long may they continue!!