Diary Of A Busker Day 592 Wednesday July 16th 2014 (1. Opposite Pavilion, Time: 1:51-2:51pm, 2. Opposite Oxfam, Time: 3-4:20pm).
An amusing incident occurred at the first session. When I started playing, the Pavilion door was wide open but when I looked up after having my head down for not more than a minute, it was shut! I didn’t see who shut it, but there was only one person in the shop and it WASN’T the dark-haired Bitch – it was the blonde one: the blonde-haired Bitch. So maybe she doesn’t appreciate the finer points of fingerstyle guitar, either…or maybe she does!
However, a few minutes later, after I’d started Albatross, the door was opened by the blonde one, who then smiled at me, so I thought, ‘What’s going on here?’ And then, another woman – a customer – walked by the door, looked at me and gave me the thumbs-up. I reckon she must have said, ‘Oh, I like that song’, or something like that, to the blonde who must have then thought, ‘Oh well, I’ll open the door’ – ha! That’s my theory, anyway…and I’m sticking to it.
Actually, there was another almost amusing incident. A man with his small son contributed, saying, ‘Oh, what’s the one you play? – the lost man?’ I corrected him – ‘The Third Man, you mean’. Mind, I sometimes feel like The Lost Man…! The Third Man played by The Lost Man.
Fifteen minutes before the hour, the usual happens. A van – a Europcar – pulls up right in front of me. The bloke gets out, goes in a shop, comes out, gets back in the van – so I think he’s going to go, but then he gets out again, opens a side door, gets out a parcel and disappears into the alley, presumably on the way to the High Street. So I play until the hour’s up then pack up when, as usual, the bloke comes back and drives off!
There are two blokes refurbishing the Oxfam shop, opposite. They’re banging and drilling and sawing away. They were here yesterday, as well, and I don’t think they’re big fans of the fingerstyle technique, somehow. They seem to glare at me, as they did yesterday. (Or maybe I’m paranoid…) It’s too bad: we’ve all got a job to do.
When I was packing up, a man came up as I was rubbing my hands and said, ‘I suppose your hands are tired, playing here all day’. I said it was OK and I was going home now. He ignored that and said, ‘My hands are strong…play chess (do you need strong hands to pick up a bishop…ooh, er)…karate, holding things’. ‘Oh, right’, I said. He went on – ‘Most people, when they hear karate, they move back, but karate’s about – you wait for the other person to attack’. Me – ‘Oh yeah, right…I see’. ‘Anyway, I’ve only got 50p’, he says. ‘You don’t have to give me anything, you know’, I say. He, walking off, says, ‘Well, I’d give a week’s wage if I could’. Me – ‘Thank you, that’s very nice of you’.
Earnings: £21.47p