Diary Of A Busker Day 478 Tuesday November 26th 2013 Winchester (Opposite Vodafone, Time: 2:03-3:06pm).
I don’t know what happened in the night but when I woke up, my hearing seemed to have got worse. Not only is there some volume loss but everything sounds different! I’m really worried about it so I phoned up to see if a nurse could have a look to see if there’s any blockages, although I don’t think it’s that as both the ears wouldn’t get blocked at the same time. Unfortunately, the earliest they can see me is next Tuesday morning, coincidentally right after my appointment with Dr. Fitzgerald-Barron about my hand.
I thought I’d better go into town, as I was going to, anyway, and see how it all sounds – in situ, as it were… I get my pick of any spot – it’s obviously too cold for anyone else to come out! – and set up at Vodafone and start up with Albatross…and it sounds completely different. I could hear the bass notes OK, but the mid-range was too loud and some of the high notes, I could barely hear. But the weirdest thing was I couldn’t hear any reverb. I could hear the notes but not the tone or any effects. Very weird and I didn’t like it at all. Albatross is nothing without reverb!
…and then, it was 20 minutes before the first donation: a pound coin from an old lady. So it was 20 minutes, getting more and more depressing, and hundreds about. So it’s: the new hand problem, the new ear problem, the cold, being more or less totally ignored. For what it’s worth, Song Of The Day is When I’m Sixty-Four, as it secured the aforementioned first donation. But, oh dear, I WAS getting angry. I was even starting to stop and shake my head, looking around me.
Then Delia came by – I hadn’t seen her for weeks and I immediately inflicted my sob story on her, poor woman. I tell her it was 20 minutes before the first coinage. ‘People are so mean’, she says. I say ‘I know they are in England – they’re not, in other places. I know – people have told me!’ True. That’s what Gert said, anyway. Delia says ‘And Winchester, they’re mean here’. I say ‘I know – it’s a disgrace, but YOU’RE not mean. But then you’re not from here, are you?’. She said I should get a hat. I said my problem’s not my head, it’s my hands and ears, so she said I should go home and have a cup of tea and go to bed. I said the way things were going, with my luck, I might not wake up! She said ‘Don’t be stupid! – you’re young!’ Young? – 51?! I suppose it’s all relative. I didn’t even ask how SHE was until a few minutes later, when she was walking off.
Later, after The Third Man, a woman contributed and said ‘I was there, you know’. Assuming (correctly) she meant Vienna, I said ‘You’ve been to Vienna?’ ‘Yes’, she said. I said I’d never been. She said ‘Yes, and I went to see him play that, but he wasn’t there’. Assuming (again correctly) she meant Anton Karas, I said ‘You mean the guy who played that – Anton Karas?’ ‘Yes, and I went all that way and he wasn’t there!’ I asked when that was. ‘Oh, years ago – I’m 86’. I did the usual – ‘Oh, you look very young for it (she did)…he (Karas) died in 1985, I think…in fact I’m pretty sure (very sure, actually)’. When she says ‘years ago’ , she could mean 50 or 25. If it was 25 years ago, he definitely was dead! She goes off so I finish the song I was doing after The Third Man – when she turned up. Then, 30 seconds later, went back into TTM, just for her. I was looking down the road, to my right the whole time and sure enough, she turns around and waves. I knew she would – they always do!
After an hour and a bit, I’ve had enough: of the cold, of my sore left thumb, and now this new thing – the weird hearing thing. I’m not having alot of fun! I think I might look for another job tomorrow…or maybe I’ll wake up and the ears’ll be back to normal, although they’re not ‘normal’, anyway.
Earnings: £10.20p