Diary Of A Busker Day 500 Thursday January 23rd 2014 Winchester (Opposite Vodafone, Time: 2:43-4:13pm).
The five hundreth Day! – that’s half a thousand! I remember way back, when I was on Day 35 or something, and I thought ‘There’s no way I’m going to get to one hundred – I’ve got to stop and do something else way before that’, and here I am – Day 500. Someone should give me a medal for writing all this stuff down…or at least a publishing deal.
Anyway…a very cold day: the minute – no, the second I stepped outside, I was thinking ‘What am I doing?!’ I had a bit of a walk around before I settled at Vodafone. Mandolin John was down from The Butter Cross, his suit ditched in favour of a jacket. I walked down the road and stood where I normally set up in front of C & H, but it was so cold, mainly because of the wind, that I decided to go back up to Vodafone
As I was settting up, Alan – the litter collector, passed and, noticing a fire alarm sounding, said ‘Doesn’t that annoy you?’ I said ‘There are loads that go off around here’. He said ‘You know why?’ ‘No’. ‘Picks up the damp, that’s why they go off – pick it up from ME – the sweat, as I’m going by’. Funny guy.
Most times, it’s ages before anyone takes any notice of me. Not so today. I’m interrupted twice during the first song – the 1st Gnossienne. In fact, both times before I’ve even got to the third part. Firstly, a man wants to know what it’s called. I seem to get this alot about this one. I think people have heard it in films and stuff, but they don’t know what it is. When I was explaining what it was, I made sure he understood it’s Gnossienne with a silent G, as I was informed of yesterday, of course. So, a nice tune and all that information…and no donation. Then, on the approach to part two of the piece, two blokes ask where the music shop is. So I stopped again and told them – ‘Turn right at Barclays and go down the road – Jewry Street, and it’s CY Music’. At least they donated.
Ragtime Phillip came by – I asked how he was. ‘My teeth are falling out, now’. I hadn’t noticed till he grinned and then I saw the gap, at the side at the top. The poor guy – first his hair, then his fingernails. Yet he’s always happy to see and hear me. And always donates. I’d played his favourite – the fifth Gnossienne, a bit earlier, and I half thought ‘I’ll play it now’, but I need to get it a bit better – he’s a connoisseur.
….some smart-ass guitar player walks by and says ‘Hello Mr. 335 with a Bigsby’, for which I returned a forced laugh. Actually, he is in need of correction: it’s not a Gibson 335, it’s an Epiphone Casino. Twit.
Then, a rather amusing encounter during Girl. This bloke – a short old Drongo with a pointed woollen cap, unshaven, bits of food around his mouth – he looked a bit like that Compo bloke from Last Of The Summer Wine – suddenly appears and starts talking in a gruff, sort of cartoonish old-timer’s voice. He says ‘Yer good, eh?’ I say ‘Thanks’. He says ‘Ah could stand here and listen all day’, and I think ‘And that’s what he’s going to do, isn’t it?!’ Then he says ‘You know any French market music?’ I say ‘Sorry, what?’ ‘French market music’. ‘No, sorry’. After standing grinning another minute, he produces a 2p coin and puts it in the bucket and says ‘Every little bit helps, as the actress said to the bishop, he he’. ‘Yeah, that’s right’, I say. Then it’s ‘I could stand here all day’ again, before he decides otherwise and walks off.
A solemn moment. After my Can’t Help Falling In Love rendition, a woman comes up and tells me the original French title – Plaisir d’Amour, and the original meaning – ‘The Pleasure of Love – how the happiness lasts a very short time, but the misery lasts forever’. It’s so educational out here, sometimes!
Then the old bloke – Compo Drongo of Winchester – returns, this time with a young Drongo friend. Compo says ‘It’s cold, eh?’ Me: ‘Yep’. Compo: ‘What you need to do…imagine a fire – you’ve got red trousers (burgundy corduroy from Primark, actually)…the flames are red…imagine a house on fire…see?’ Me: ‘Oh right, I see what you mean…very good idea’. Compo: ‘Yeah, that’s what my friend used to do. He couldn’t get to sleep so he thought of a field’. Me: ‘A field?’ ‘Yeah, a big open field…’. All this time, his young friend’s chuckling and going ‘Oh come on, don’t bother him’, while I’m thinking about a house on fire and all that. The he says again ‘I could stand here all day’, then, after a pause, ‘I don’t really want to, though’, before his chuckling friend drags him off.
The final encounter of the day. During Yellow Bird, a man about 65 puts a £5 note in the bucket, for which I stop playing to offer my heartfelt and eternal thanks. He says ‘Well, it was almost as if you were playing that for me’. I said ‘Really?’, and must have looked confused because he leaned in and said ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ Oh dear, I didn’t. Anyway, I give my usual reply – ‘Well, I know your face – I know I’ve seen you before’, and he leans in closer – ‘You don’t remember me, you played that for me, up the road’. I vaguely remember, now. It was a few weeks back, under the shelter of The Pentice. I ask his name – it’s Ken, and I tell him mine and we shake hands and I say I’ll remember him next time, although now, as I’m writing this, I’ve got his name, but I’ve forgotten his face!
A very cold day – I couldn’t believe I did a straight hour and a half.
Earnings: £24.33p