I was in town yesterday getting my halloween kit sorted out when I saw a junky getting up to some heroin fuelled mischief.

There is a couple who busk in town on a semi-regular basis. The guy plays a great big keyboard and the girl sings. One thing that makes them stand out from the veritable cavalcade of buskers in the city is that they are both blind. Not that it should really- their blindness might be more remarkable if they were doing something like card tricks. I don’t know, maybe it’s just the fact that their money never gets stolen by ne’erdowells that impresses people. But there you go, they’re blind.

Something that is a much more common sight in Glasgow is this: Busker busking whilst being accompanied, on a strictly impromptu basis, by an drunk old man ‘dancing’ or otherwise making a cack-handed attempt at enhancing the performance. Predictably, their presence is almost always ignored by both the public and, often to a ridiculous degree, by the busker themselves. The busker will continue to strum, fiddle, blow or otherwise commit what must be considered in policing terms to be a breach of the peace, while the drunk man will enthusiastically lurch/wobble/vibrate in a tight radius around his chosen target.

Well, it was a variation on this theme that I saw yesterday. A reversal of sorts. The blind couple were there with all of their gear all set up and were at full throttle when I walked past. The girl was belting out You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings and was singing ...did you ever know that you’re my heeeeero ... and everything that I would like to beeeee ... I can fly higher than an eeeeeagle ... for you are the wind beneath my wings. But the twist was, she was being accompanied by one of the city’s heroin enthusiasts, who had taken time out of his day pushing a shopping trolley full of copper wire* to accompany the sightless chanteuse. He was right up at the microphone, inches away from the girl, giving it everything he had. But his drug addled state seemed to have robbed him of his mojo. Despite mouthing all of the words he was failing to produce any sort of sonic impact and the blind buskers had no idea he was even there.

*A remarkably more common sight that you might reasonably expect.