Today was a lovely peaceful day in Devizes. The sun peeped through the clouds (occasionally), families strolled along to the May Fair in the Market Place and there was a generally agreeable air about the place.

What a pity the peace was shattered with the ear-batering sound of a samba band.

I know the May Fair organisers don't have a lot of cash and the Oi Sambistas band probably work for little or nothing but is the assault on the senses that is samba music really appropriate for a genteel family occasion?

I was working today and popped over to the Little House of Coffee for lunch. I found a handy table outside and had just settled down to enjoy the warmth of the weather and the adjacent fair when a hideous cacophony started up.

About 20 people began pounding on drums just a few yards away. The air disturbance from all this bashing was so great the coffee cups began dancing on the tables.


Now I am sure there are many, many fans of samba music who love the sultry rythym of the drums.

But to me it sounds like a lorry load of enmpty dustbins being emptied down an aluminium staircase.

I could have up with a few minutes of it and accepted that music is a varied banquet with dishes to suit a wife variety of palettes.

But after 20 minutes it began to wear a bit. It was hard to tell when one 'tune' ended and another began, especially when it all sounded like soemone trying to break out of a container lorry with a sledgehammer.

How do the people who play this stuff not go deaf?

Mericfully it stopped but to my horror the band waited until I got back to my desk and began work again before restarting.

My office faces on to the Market Place and for what seemed like another hour the sambistas were hammering away like a blacksmiths' convention.

Maybe I am just being a miserable, insensitive git. But is this really entertainment?