Diary Of A Busker Day 427

Diary Of A Busker Day 427 Friday August 9th Winchester (Opposite Oxfam, Time: 1:23-3:35pm).

During the walk into town – on the Romsey Road, I was unexpectedly joined by one of the High Street Drongos. A little bloke – he’s fairly pleasant, likes the stuff I play and he was in a very chatty mood. He said he’d busked once, playing the harmonica in the week before Christmas, and he’d made £300 in an hour and a half! I said I’d never made anything like that (take a zero off, that’s more like it), but he said after that he’d had enough of it, and he never did it again. He said he’d known someone else who’d made £450 on Christmas eve. Did he have a gun?…I don’t know, I hear these stories…

There are a few about today: young strummers, and Pierre the balloon guy, so he didn’t do himself in. I hadn’t seen him for a few months – I was beginning to wonder. So, down at Oxfam again. A foreign guy donates after the new set addition – Gnossienne No.1, and I’m so thrilled, I have to tell him all about it! He didn’t know it was by Satie. Then he tells me about a French twelve-string player’s version of The Doors’ Spanish Caravan, which I don’t know so I thank him, write it down in the pad and say I’ll look into it*.

I see posh BrYan coming my way, wearing a pair of VERY red corduroy trousers – rather too vibrant for a man of his age, I have to say. I keep my head down, he stops anyway – strange, as he doesn’t usually. Maybe he needs to get something off his chest. ‘What a cheerful noise!’, he says. ‘Thank you, BrYan (the pronounced capitol Y is of course silent to him)…that’s better than a…um…uncheerful noise, I guess’. He carries on – ‘There’s all young men up there, strangling Bob Dylan, you’d pay the money to just go away, you really would!’ So that’s what was on his chest. Off he goes…

I packed in after two hours – actually a bit longer. I got to the two hour mark but wanted one more donation, as I hadn’t had one for ten minutes. I got one eventually, I might have pushed my luck a bit, though. The TINC bloke was standing in his doorway looking at me for a good minute. I thought ‘I bet he’s timing me – “Right, it’s over two hours now, he’s been plonking away out there, I’ll go and stare him out!”‘ Of course, being a somewhat paranoid individual, I could be wrong…

On the way out, I had a chat with Frank who’d set up camp: dog, accordion on pavement, cart with radio on top. He was taking a break, listening to the cricket – something I am wholly ignorant of – no, wait – I know who Dave Gough is, now! Yes, I do, and so I tell Frank about the other night, and Mr. Gough, and the old lady going on about his Strictly Come Dancing Lycra. Frank said ‘I know, but trouble is, millions of people watch that show’. I said ‘I know and what does that tell you about millions of people?’ (There must be few million who are just interested in Lycra, is what it tells me). On a different subject, Frank says he still hasn’t got hold of another accordion to replace the one he’s got which is dying – ‘It was practically nothing, anyway’, he says, ‘I paid twenty quid, three years ago. It’s earned me a lot, you know’. I said it was like my old Raleigh bike. They made ’em to last.

Earnings: £26.29p

* I did. It’s basically the first part of Asturias Leyenda!

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