There have always been street performers with extraordinary hard luck stories. There used be a guy in Edinburgh who read aloud in the street from a braille Bible after being blinded in an explosives factory accident. But he didn't go on a world tour promoted by a spammer who announced him on every forum he could get at, selling him as the greatest thing to come out of the US since Dylan.

I'd probably be polite enough to listen to Baker for a couple of minutes in the street and put 20p in his hat. But musical quality wouldn't come into it.

He's actually no worse than Antje Duvekot, who was the previous act promoted in the UK the same way. But Duvekot is at least fit enough to serve in Starbucks, so I probably wouldn't throw her that 20p.