Diary Of A Busker Day 2577 Wednesday July 9th 2025 Chichester.
Back to Chichester, but not for long…
Another early arrival but not early enough as there are already three lots of buskers in place; a young woman opera singer near The Cross (it’s market day so stalls everywhere, including one in front of The Cross), and two guitarists down North Street, which means a roam down East Street and it’s crammed up with stalls. The only place is down near the end of the pedestrian bit, opposite Costa. An old bloke in a wheelchair comes up while I’m setting up – ‘what sort of stuff do you play?’ ‘solo guitar, stuff from the sixties, some Erik Satie…all old stuff.’ ‘OK, well I look forward to hearing you.’ ‘Well, you won’t have to wait long, I’ll just be another minute, after I tune up.’ Too long, he’s off.
I start at 11 o’clock with Albatross, and a good start as a woman sitting outside Costa comes up afterwards with two pound coins and – ‘that’s my favourite song and you played it beautifully, thank you.’ Unfortunately, not many others paid any attention apart from a middle-aged Chinese woman who asked if she could take a photo of me and then one with her in it – ‘you handsomest man, very handsome.’ ‘Umm…well thank you!’ That kept me going for a bit but after an hour and 45 minutes and with a total coinage of £8.50, I’d had enough. It was also heating up although my recently purchased hand-held fan certainly helped in between songs. Tomorrow and the next few days are going to be a heat wave, at 30 degrees, which is something else I kept thinking about because my Southampton connection Jeff (from New York) came through. A few days ago I had a text from Adam who runs the Ottoman Kitchen in the high street. He wanted to know if I would be able to play this Friday outside the restaurant for £125. I foolishly agreed, forgetting about how hot it’s going to be. Maybe that’s why he contacted me, because he couldn’t get anyone else to do it!
Anyway, getting back to today…I packed up (I could barely touch the coins to put in my little purse because they were absolutely red hot from the heat) then went to the cathedral grounds and had my lunch of a mackerel and salad sandwich while sitting on a grave…and pondered about what to do because I’d barely made half the train fare back. I decided to ponder the situation more while looking for a birthday card for Mother…I couldn’t find one and was getting fucked off carting round the heavy guitar case and the other case, so I had an Americano in The Real Eating Place and decided to do something I don’t think I’ve ever done before – not here, anyway. I decided I’d had enough of the heat, the two heavy cases, the crap coinage…and decided to bugger off back home and look for a card in Smiths before they shut, which is what I did. The day was a write-off. It took me an hour and a half to get there on the train (and the same back) and all for what? Sweet Fanny Adams all. Still, at the age of 63 it was humbling to be complimented on my appearance! Still got it, haha!