Diary Of A Busker Day 262 Wednesday July 25th 2012 Winchester High Street 1. Opposite Oxfam, 2. opposite Vodafone, 3. Opposite Oxfam, Time: 3-8pm
It’s been raining everyday for the last few weeks but now that’s all stopped and it’s hot and sunny. There’s a young group including a guy on a trombone, busking near The Buttercross, so I head down to the crossroads…where there’s a woman lying down on a stretcher, just up from the busking spot; Frank’s there. I can see the back end of an ambulance just around the corner. I ask Frank what’s going on. ‘I dunno, probably the heat.’ I tell him about yesterday’s altercation with The Busker-Hater Of Winchester High Street and about him quoting the Busker’s Code. Frank raises a valid point; ‘They call it the Busker’s Code but they haven’t consulted any buskers about it, so how can it be a busker’s code?’ ‘That’s right, it’s the COUNCIL’S code for buskers.’
Looks like I’m down the arse-end again. I’m lucky in a way, because if everywhere else is taken, I can always rely on that spot being free. I meet Maria, who’s in her seventies, dressed all in white. She loves my sound – ‘beautiful,’ she says. That’s nice because I need an ego boost after yesterday. Maria tells me how she used to sing with Dean Martin. Wow, I want to know more, I mean, how often do you meet someone who’s sung with Dino? She says she phoned him, said she was a singer, he paid her air fare to America and she sang with him at a few shows. In fact she told me the songs they did together; about five, but I forgot my pencil today so I couldn’t write them down. Maria gives me a whole bunch of coins, says again how beautiful the sound is, kisses me on the forehead and goes off, only to return a bit later to give me some more coinage and compliments. I feel so grateful, I give her a CD for nothing.
After my break (I think I was at the first spot for two hours) I set up at the crossroads, as Frank’s now gone, to the relief of the market man who has the misfortune to have the end stall, right near where he plays. ‘He’s there for hours!’ he says. I meet the lady who’s just put her husband in a home. But it’s a “nice” home. She wants to buy a CD. After I take her £5, I ask her how her husband’s getting on. ‘Oh, fine. It’s better him being there. It was getting too much for me but he’s coming back home for a day. Just a day a week. I can cope with that.’ And then, glazing over, ‘but God will look after us all. Jesus…’ Oh no! I’d forgotten she’s a God-person! And I’ve just taken five pounds off her so I feel obliged to listen, ‘…Jesus rose from the dead, none of the others did that, not Mohammed, they found the bones of him and the others…’ ‘Well, you’re entitled to your beliefs,’ I say. ‘Don’t you believe?’ she says. ‘I have my own beliefs. I keep them to myself.’ ‘But don’t you want to go to heaven?’ ‘Heaven and hell, I don’t believe in all that stuff,’ then, in an attempt to change the subject, ‘anyway, I hope you like the CD! Let me know what you think.’ ‘Oh yes, I will.’ She’s off. Why did she have to ruin our nice relationship by glazing over and bringing in God and Jesus? I need to revise the sign n my bucket to; CDs £5 AND PLEASE – NO GOD CHAT OR EUROS, ONLY ENGLISH COINS.
On the way up the road, I meet Simon, full time Big Issue seller/part time evening-shift busker. He notices my Jacques Brel T-shirt and has clearly never heard of him. ‘What’s that, Jack-es Brel – the guy from The Stranglers?’ ‘No, not him. Jacques – pronounced Shack, you know, in the French way.’ ‘Never ‘eard of ‘im.’ I try and educate him; ‘He wrote Jacky, Scott Walker had a hit with it in 1967.’ He hasn’t heard of him, either. I ponder…I know! ‘If You Go Away – he wrote that. Ne Me Quitte Pas, loads of people have done that, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Sting.’ ‘Ah, Sting! Yeah, my first album, Regatta De Blanc. You know that one?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Means white reggae. Regatta – French for reggae.’ ‘Right.’ ‘I mean, the guitarist, Andy Summers, he knew some chords. If you ever sit down and work out what he’s playin’…’ Simon shakes his head. ‘I mean, great chords, man! Well, I couldn’t play ’em.’ Well, he might have played some great chords but his guitar sound was bloody awful! After some more minutes, I say I’m leaving to do a bit up the road before the weirdos come and beat me up. ‘The weirdos? They’re already here!’ Simon says.
I finish off near the top of the street, opposite the Nat West bank, somewhere I haven’t busked before. It’s also the first time I’ve played after 6:30. I meet a friendly young man with a speech impediment who buys a CD – that’s three today, a record. His name’s Tudor – ‘like Henry the Eighth time.’ The councillor turns up. I ask how he is. ‘I’m fine,’ he says and drops a small, several times-folded square of paper into the bucket which retrieve forthwith, unfold and discover it’s a bank note of considerable valuTo the value of £20 to be precise. And there I was going on about him not contributing anymore. He hath redeemed himself.
I spend the last fifteen minutes watching five drongos (what’s the collective noun for drongos? A dreg, maybe? A dreg of drongos, that’ll do), anyway, three men and two woman of them are on the bench opposite. They sit, run around, yelp, drink stuff from plastic cups and hit a balloon with a plank of wood until it bursts.
Earnings: £61.35 + 3 CDs
