Hey Osvaldo, Don't Get Me Wrong....

Ok, here's a challenge for all of you intelligent, free thinkers. I'll give a prize to the best answer and put it in the blog.

The other day we were strolling through a park near the Costanera Sur nature reserve. There were plenty of interesting street entertainers, couples dancing the salsa, traditional folk musicians, teenagers breakdancing, stalls preparing street food and an antiques market. Full of people from the city's less well-to-do areas. Good fun was being had by all.

At a certain point a lone musician in the distance caught my eye. He was a south american indian, tall, with long black hair and dressed in a traditional costume. He was standing at a microphone playing the panpipes. He had a considerable crowd gathered around him.

Now I started to like listining to the pan pipes many years ago when I lived in Exeter in the UK. There were a group of Peruvians who regularly appeared in the High Street on Saturday afternoons and attracted quite a crowd, playing mysterious and exotic tunes from the Andes. A little bit of South America in an otherwise dull and boring weekend in Devon.

I reckon almost every High Street in the UK has had its pan pipe players in recent years. I've also seen them on the Via Dei Fori Imperiali in Rome outside of Caesar's Temple.

So I hot footed it towards my tall, dark haired, traditionally dressed pan pipe player from the Andes. Finally, after all these years I'd be able to hear a pan pipe player here in his home continent, South America. Surely he'd be even better than those musicians who came to the UK, in the same way that Italian food is miles better in Italy than it is in other countries, and German beer is best of all when drunk in Germany.

I arrived within earshot of the musician and couldn't believe what I heard. He wasn't playing an exotic mysterious melody from the Andes. Instead, the unmistakable notes of Hey Jude filled the air and judging from their reaction, the massed crowd couldn't get enough. For good measure he followed with Chicatita by Abba. The crowd were now becoming hysterical in their enthusiasm. At least that song has a Spanish name, I thought. But that was enough for me-I was on my way to the next stall.

So here's your challenge, intelligent free thinkers. When it comes to pan pipes and pan pipers you get exotic south american melodies in Exeter High Street but Hey Jude when you're in South America.

Why?