SHOULD we put York's buskers to the test? The Diary asks after the good burghers of Budapest decided buskers should pass a yearly exam before being allowed to perform in the Hungarian capital.

They want to stop people's ears being assaulted by the dirges of amateurs.

From now on street musicians will be judged by a jury at an annual festival, and the melodically challenged will be banished.

Along with some brilliant musicians, York has its fair share of tinpot tin whistlers, tuneless twangers and song stranglers. Would a Buskers Idol contest sort the talented from the tone deaf?

Who better to ask than one of the city's most familiar buskers, Les Prentice?

Les is the chap with the guitar, harmonica, tambourine, drum, fake woman and, most famously, two border collies, Bessie and Rosie.

Bessie is often so moved by Les's vocalisations that she howls along.

Les is okay with the thought of a musical exam.

"It wouldn't bother me at all," he said, after a spirited rendition of Where Do You Go To My Lovely in St Sampson's Square.

"Buskers keep coming and going. There's some really good piano players.

"I suppose I should be down at the bottom of the ladder."

Les, 68, who has been playing on the streets of York for 16 years after retiring as a bricklayer, has a repertoire of 300 songs, including some of his own compositions.

He commutes to York from his caravan in Thirsk, and wouldn't recommend busking for those looking for easy money. But there are other rewards. "The crowd are willing you to fail. If you beat them, they love you for it. But if you play a wrong note, you have flippin' had it."

TO another form of street theatre now, as we wonder which are the most zealous: York's traffic wardens or York's litter wardens.

First blood to the windscreen slappers. In a street off Bootham, a resident - name withheld to prevent reprisals - is becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of parking spaces, despite paying a hefty whack to the council for a ResPark permit.

Once, when he finally secured a space close to home, an over-eager warden put a ticket on his car after misreading his valid permit. He overturned that on appeal. But he had to cough up a £30 fine after arriving home very late one Saturday night and leaving his car on double yellow lines, rather than walk from several streets away.

He rose early the next morning to move it - but too late to prevent the ticket.

A fair cop, he admits. But what about their parents collecting children from the scout hut who "park down there in there 4x4s to collect one little spindly kid" and don't get fined?

He predicts bouts of parking rage. "I can see a point when I get so grieved I shall just dump the car in the middle of the street and they will have to come and tow it away.

"Or someone will take it to the extreme and take a traffic warden hostage."

ROUND two to the litter lot. Salesman John Statters went to buy a sandwich for himself and a colleague at the York Divan Centre.

He dropped his cigarette before entering Krusties in Patrick Pool, but was immediately approached by two uniformed litter wardens and a man in civvies videoing him.

John got a £50 fine, making his total lunch bill about £54. A lot of cash for a chicken and cheese sarnie, he ruefully confessed.

Write to: The Diary, Chris Titley, The Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN

Email diary@ycp.co.uk

Telephone (01904) 653051 ext 337

Updated: 10:10 Thursday, May 13, 2004