My kind of busker

I usually want to shoot those 'official' London Tube buskers, especially when they drown out the official announcements with an interminable version of Gary Moore's 'Parisian Walkways', dire enough in the original let alone poorly rendered on saxophone.

But when nature writer Richard Mabey (Food for Free, Nature Cure, Weeds) suggested a 'botanical busk' afloat the FC I knew this would be an altogether more compelling affair. Richard did not disappoint, enthralling our audience with hands-on examples of the leaves of Bounciing Bet (soapwort) frothing up into suds, folk tales warning children against the perils of duckweed-covered water, and identifying rare native plants casually thriving on the canalside such as skullcap and the highly toxic water hemlock.