Diary Of A Busker Day 420 Sunday July 28th Winchester (Corner of Monsoon, Time: 2:45-5:15pm).
The minute I turn around after I’ve set up, there she is – Purple God Woman Wendy. But thankfully it’s a false alarm. After letting me know about some other guitarist up the road, she walks off. Phew. I’ve escaped unmolested…this time. I thought I’d set up here just for a change of scenery. The only problem is: because I’ve got a direct view of the cathedral, on the right, I’m also in a direct line of fire from the cathedral bells, which I have to say are pretty bloody loud! It’s also quite windy: I start and stop Can’t Help Falling In Love three times as, every time, the bit of TAB with Malaguena and Danny Boy on, blows away, and I have to go and get it, or someone passing by does. In the end I put it in the folder and put that under one of the stool legs.
Ragtime Phillip comes up during Black Mountain Rag, which he correctly identifies, but I almost don’t recognise him – it looks like he’s had his head shaved. It’s the chemo, he says, and he’s hoping it’ll grow back thicker and more luxuriously – ‘If I live that long!’ He says he’s reading the new Keith Richards book which he says is really good when you get past all the expletives. Phillip’s curious about the riff to Brown Sugar and open G tuning, so I show it to him and say you can do it with normal tuning, just using the three middle strings – it’s easy! I tell him I’ve been teaching it to Tom recently. He then says he’s been working on the Stone’s Angie, and that there’s a really good Ab they do in the E chord. So I say he should sit down and show it to me, and this time he does, which I’m pleased about because he hasn’t wanted to do that since he’s been ill. He played it through pretty well, I thought. Then he thanks me – ‘You’re a gentleman’. No, I’m not!
Later on at home, I start thinking about ex-cruise guitarist Mick, and how I haven’t seen him since that day I said I couldn’t stop playing, to speak to him. So now I’m thinking maybe he’s died. He was or is 70. You never know, I mean blokes younger than me drop dead from heart attacks and strokes and stuff. I hope he hasn’t died. If he has, I’ll feel terrible!
Earnings: £22.82p + one eastern European or Russian coin: 10 Pybaer(?)
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