Diary Of A Busker Day 388 Wednesday June 19th Winchester High Street (1. Opposite Oxfam, Time: 12:47-2:02pm, 2. Zizzi’s Restaurant, Time: 2:30-3pm, 3. Opposite Bellis, Time: 3:05-5:11pm).
Like the past two days, he’s there again! – young Sam, at The Butter Cross. If he’s there the next time I come in, I’m going to ask if he’s paying rent on the place. And down the road, at the mid-way spot, is a girl, or rather – woman (early 20s), who I’ve seen before at this same place, and what she does is play single note jazz runs on the electric guitar, not over any dreaded backing tracks – some consolation, I suppose, but just on her own, disembodied from any chords, which would make it all make sense! I’ve got no idea what songs she’s playing – if any, and it all sounds improvised, which is fine if you’re in your bedroom, but she might as well be practising scales. Which is alright if you’re in your own bedroom! I don’t know if she’s very sociable. I can’t see her face as she’s got her head down and it’s covered by really long hair. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen her face. Oh well, to each her own. I suppose I shouldn’t go on about being unsociable.
So I end up down at Oxfam, where I spend an extremely (financially) disappointing hour and fifteen minutes. I accumulate just over £6, which has somehow found it’s way past the cobwebs over the bucket. The only other thing of note is the old lady who’s sitting on the bench across the road. She’s there the whole time, glaring at me, with a face like she’s constipated, or she’s straining to get it all out.
I pack up and walk back up the road. Approaching the middle spot, I can hear Boring Jazz Girl, and at the crossroads, right around the corner from her, there are those two really fat, bald blokes who I think must have something to do with one of the market stalls set up here. They’re always around (and round), anyway. As I walk past, one says to me ‘She’s STILL there!’. I say ‘Oh, is she?’ He says ‘Yeah. She’s been there all mornin’, ALL MORNIN’!’ I don’t often feel sympathy for these ugly fat bald blokes but I almost do, now.
I carry on up the road…and Sam’s STILL there, too! Hmm…a bit of a problem. I go and sit near the entrance to the cathedral grounds and work out what to do. In fact I almost set up where Rick Tarrant goes, near The Slug & Lettuce, but some construction vehicles turn up, including a mini digger, and they’re all bombing around the small area – The Square, making a lot of noise and blowing a lot of dust about, and I can’t handle all that around me. In the end I head up to Barclays Bank and set up opposite the pizza/Italian place. But that’s just as bad – worse even – than down the road. I get two donations in half an hour. One from a lady, the other from a young guy who works at the sweet shop a bit further up. He requests House Of The Rising Sun, so I play the guitar bit from The Animals’ version, which doesn’t seem to register with him for some reason. I think he thinks I’m going to sing it, although if he’s been listening for the past twenty minutes, which he must have done, he should know I just do instrumental stuff.
A few minutes after, Jeremy stops by. He’s come from the busy part so I ask if Boring Jazz Girl’s still there. She is. I tell him I wish she’d get lost in other words, or at least learn a song! (I’m getting pretty exasperated, to tell the truth, and I’ve just had two very bad sessions). However, Sam’s left his residency – his perch atop The Butter Cross, so after half an hour I reckon I can pack up and nab the spot, and I hope it goes better than this. On the way down, I’m reminded of what Churchill said, and utilise it for my own dastardly ends: never in the field of human musical endeavour, was so much played, by one person, for so little.
Just after I start, I look up and there he is – young Sam, sitting on the bench with his amp and stuff! I said ‘You don’t want to play here again, do you?!’ He says he doesn’t (good), so I carry on…when I look up again a bit later, he says ‘Don’t worry, it’s not some sort of “guitar-off”!’, which I thought was amusing. Good lad, because you’d lose. Like I would if I took on your game, sonny.
A bloke in his 60s chats to me for what seems an eternity, about how he discovered he had a rare record: a Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album without the last song, A Day In The Life. (he rather annoyingly keeps referring to it as A Day In The Life Of, even after my correcting him). Apparently, according to his 1988 rare record guide, there were only ever four copies made like that. It’s all quite interesting, for the first five minutes, but as I stopped playing to speak with him, I feel I shouldn’t start up again – it’d be rude! It would be different if I hadn’t stopped playing while the conversation commenced. I must have been playing something other than Albatross or The Third Man because if I was doing one of them, I could have carried on whether the bloke was talking or not. I must remember: If I ever find myself in a boring conversation, switch playing whatever it is I’m doing to one of those.
Anyway, a somewhat gruelling day, although in the last set I made up for some of the lost money from the other ones. Still, I played a total of FOUR hours with two breaks: 20 minutes and 5 minutes. That’s a hell of a lot of playing.
Earnings: £34.91p