Diary Of A Busker Day 2508 Wednesday March 19th 2025 Winchester.
The good thing about having loads of guitars is if I get bored with playing one, there’s always another one to play for a bit and when I get bored with that one, there’s yet another one. The bad thing is that there’s no room to keep them all! Anyway, I thought I’d give the fireglo Strat a rest and get the white one down from the attic and take that one out for a bit. The Buttercross is free again so I get stuck in. In fact, just before this, from 2 to 3 o’clock, I gave a lesson to Jerry who’s renting a place nearby and we spent the whole lesson on the Tales Of The Unexpected Theme, so I thought I’d kick off with that one as I was well-practised in it.
Like this whole week, there’s loads of foreign students about. I had an enormous bunch in front for a few minutes and they all applauded at the end, which was nice, and a couple even donated, which was nicer. After half an hour I’m donated a packet of “giant” chocolate buttons (74% cocoa) from a young bloke who came out of Montezuma’s. He said ‘You can have these. The people who were here before were doing my head in.’ I wonder who they were…anyway, the buttons kept me going for a while; it was a big packet and I got through half of it over the next hour and a half.
Next, a heart-warming meeting. A young guy in a tweed cap listens from across the street then comes over and says ‘I’ve been listening to you for years, since I was nine!’ ‘Really? And how old are you now?’ I asked. ‘Twenty-five.’ ‘Wow, so you’ve heard me since I started here. That’s amazing.’ In fact, he must be wrong because I haven’t been playing here for 16 years. I’ll have been playing here for 15 years come this October, which is when the diary started. Tell a lie, I started in Southampton in October and here a bit later. Assuming he knows how old he is now, he must be mistaken about being nine when he first heard me, so he must have been 10 or 11 but there’s no point in subjecting him to my pedanticism. He’s a nice bloke and even buys some CDs so I don’t mind spending some time chatting. When he’s about to head off I ask him his name – it’s Matt, and his favourite song that I do – it’s Here Comes The Sun so I say I’ll do that now and he goes back to the other side of the street while I go into the song…however, a few bars in, I stop, beckon him back over and ask if he will film me doing the song ‘because I haven’t got a live video of me playing the white Strat out here. Matt is only too happy to oblige so he takes my phone and I start up.
After a minute, David turns up and stands by while I get through the song. At the end Matt hands me back the phone and we say goodbye. David says ‘What’s with this standing up? I didn’t know it was you!’ I told him that someone – I think it was Don Lavelle, said that if I stood up I might get more coinage because it looks like I’m putting more of an effort into it. Actually, I’m not sure about that because I’ve been standing up many times recently and got fuck all, regardless of whether it looks like I’m putting any effort into it. Anyway, David then says ‘Have you seen the mural of you?’ – he means the outside wall of the new surgery and this reminds me of my first trip to the surgery this morning, when I was amazed to see an actual photograph of me right next to the reception desk! It’s a colour photo of me at The Buttercross sitting down with the EKO 12-string and a mic in front so it must have been taken last summer on the one occasion when I did some of my own songs. I said to the receptionist ‘You’ve got a photo of me there!’ and she said ‘Wow, fame.’ The photo is of the whole of The Buttercross but it’s the bit of me that’s prominent, next to the desk. This must be what that weird tall white-bearded bloke meant when he said ‘Have you seen the photo of you at the surgery?’ I thought he meant the thing on the wall outside but he must have meant this photo. Anyway, I really laughed because now I can say I’m part of the wallpaper of this town, and it’s literally true!