Diary Of A Busker Day 501 Saturday January 25th 2014 Winchester (1. Opposite Oxfam, Time: 1:35-2:35pm, 2. Opposite Pavillion, The Square, Time: 3:13-4:26pm).
There’s a bloke on the guitar at The Butter Cross, so I went down the alleyway…and there he is – Rick Tarrant. I forgot he sometimes comes here on a Saturday. He wasn’t playing, he was talking to someone. I would have said hello, but I couldn’t even catch his eye as I was walking past, so I’ll come back later.
Down at Vodafone, it’s ex-army Guy, and his folk franchise. They’re not playing either. What is this, busker break-time? So…down to Oxfam, where things are so slow and I’m about to pack in after half an hour, when a guy buys a CD. He says he’s heard me before – he says ‘Maybe we’ll see your CDs in the shops, someday. That spurred me on abit, so I made it to an hour – long enough as it’s quite cold.
Break-time at the usual: Waterstones. Break-time browse: All The Best Lines – a movie book. A good one: Frank Drebin from Naked Gun – ‘I like my sex the way I play basketball: one on one with as little dribbling as possible’ – ha! I could have stayed there all day with that book.
Back outside, Rick’s gone so I set up opposite the shop with the woman who doesn’t like me, or what I play…or both. Who cares. I reckon to do no more than a(nother) hour. I probably shouldn’t be out here, as the palm bit near the left thumb is hurting, like it was yesterday. Oh well, sod it…
…a friendly couple donate after Albatross. We start chatting and he asks if I know any Pink Floyd stuff. The only thing I know is that four note guitar thing from Shine On You Crazy Diamond, over four strings – a string a note. It’s good as it’s instantly recognisable, although at two seconds, a bit on the short side! And the bass riff from Money – I know that, so I play that, as a bonus. I suppose I could do the twelve-string acoustic bit from Wish You Were Here. So anyway, I’m thinking this guy’s a Pink Floyd fan, which is probably right, but then the woman tells me she went to school with David Gilmour, so I start to wonder if it was all a preamble for her bringing that up(?)
I have an offending couple of minutes when two bratty kids try to touch my guitar, and say things like ‘What’s that? – pointing to the Bigsby arm. Their mother – or parole officer – is standing nearby near the craft shop door, looking for something in her bag. A gun, I hope. The older brat stands right up to my face, so I stop playing, then he’s called away so I start up again. Then he comes back and puts some shrapnel in the bucket, so I have to thank him – aarrgghh. Then he goes back to his mother and shouts ‘HE’S GOT SOME MONEY IN THERE, AND HIS WALLET! – my camera case, which is orange, as if I – a grown man, would have an orange wallet. Idiot child.
Just after the hour, it gets really windy then starts to rain a bit, so I pull the stuff back a few inches so it’s under the narrow canopy of the shop, which I haven’t noticed till today. But then it really starts to pour down, so that’s it. But my hands, especially the left, had had enough. In fact, it still hurts now, writing this down. (It probably didn’t help doing eight takes of the 1st Gnossienne, after I got home, for a youtube video)…and my brain was going: I completely forgot the verse for Wouldn’t It Be Nice, and I’ve never done that before.
Earnings: £27.36p (Including 1 CD)
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