Diary Of A Busker Day 2592 Monday September 1st 2025 Winchester.
The top spot was free but they’d put up with me for two hours yesterday so I set up down at the old Debenhams entrance/new Nando’s entrance. As yesterday, I started off with Everybody Wants To Rule The World…halfway through the woman who video-ed me doing La Vie En Rose awhile back, to play for her friend in hospital, turned up and turned her camera on, which threw me a bit, as I’m still working out the arrangement for EWTRTW, but it was OK. At the end she again said how much her friend enjoyed the video which verily pleased me as it’s comforting to do something pleasing for at least one person while I’m out here.
Next up, a man who I see all the time comes up, opens his wallet and dumps a handful of shrapnel in the case. I definitely do see him all the time but he seems to think this is the first time which leads me to think his memory’s even worse than mine. Either that or he’s got a doppelganger. Anyway, he likes to chat, firstly about the Hank Marvin-ish guitar, then about a visit to one of the bars at 2am – ‘Well, ‘course at that hour, they’re full of youngsters. I was standing at the bar and there was this one bloke with his arms stuck out and he elbows me, so I said “Do you mind, you just elbowed me. I think you should apologise” and he says “I’m not apologising to you, granddad” so I says “No! Alright then, let’s take this outside” and before I knew it, some security bloke comes up and chucks both of us out and this youngster wanders off, so that was that. Anyway, how old are you?’ ‘I’m 63.’ ‘Really? You look more like 73.’ ‘Cheers, it’ll be a life on the road, I reckon. How old are you?’ ‘I’m 61, October 63 I was born.’ ‘Well, there you go.’ ‘Yeah, so what sort of stuff do you play?’ ‘Old stuff. In fact my most recent song is Everybody Wants To Rule The World, which is 40 years old now’ ‘Is it?’ ‘Yeah. 1985.’ Is that 40 years ago?’ ‘Yeah…1985 is 40 years ago.’ ‘No!’ ‘Yeah, it is.’ ‘No it’s not.’ ‘Right, 1985 to 2000 is 15 years and 2000 to 2025 is 25 years. 25 plus 15 is 40.’ ‘Well, I can only do basic maths.’ ‘Well, 25 plus 15 is basic maths, I reckon.’ ‘Yeah, OK…see ya.’ ‘See you.’ Fucking cheek, saying I look 73.
A very short Chinese woman comes up during Albatross, which I gradually fade out as I can’t be bothered trying to play and chat at the same time. She asks if I live in Greenhill Road, to which I say I do. ‘Oh, I thought you might. I used to see you around there when I lived here and it’s always nice to see you when I come back.’ ‘Thank you.’ ‘We used to live there but we had to move but I sometimes used to go by our old house, just to see it, you know? And one time there was a skip outside and they’d put all these old furnishings in it that we had in the house and I thought “Oh dear, they’ve chucked those out” – it was sad, you know?’ ‘Oh yeah, that’s a shame. I understand why that would make you sad. It’s weird, isn’t it, when you go back to an old house. You wonder what it’s like inside, with other people now there.’ I felt sorry for her. Nothing lasts forever – not my words but the words of Tears For Fears!
I managed an hour before it chucked it down. Fortunately, I could just drag the stuff into the doorway and take my time packing up – there was no point in waiting for the rain to stop so I could start up again, as it obviously wasn’t going to. If I could, I would have, as the taking were a mere £14.46.