"Heavens, no!" he says with a grin. "The children are busy being entertained by the dulcet tones of that guy over there."

That guy over there is so offkey it's impossible to tell what he's trying to sing. The kids are mostly around there caterwauling along with him, partly out of a sheer excess of energy and partly childish mocking.

"Want to join in?" He scrabbles around in the scraps for a spare brush. "It's surprisingly cathartic."