Diary Of A Busker Day 640 Monday September 29th 2014 Winchester (1. Opposite Vodafone, Time: 3:20-3:40pm, 2. Opposite Gieves & Hawkes, Time: 3:45-4:02pm, 3. Opposite Bellis, Time: 5:45-6:20pm).
I think this was the day I decided I’d finally had enough – of Winchester, anyway. I thought I’d get a short one in before the guitar lesson at 4:15. The middle spot was free, loads of people about. The result? In twenty minutes – nothing. I got rather angry. I got so angry, I even told that girl singer who’s been up at The Butter Cross – she walked by with her bike and cart. I said it’s been terrible, then asked how she’d got on. She said she’d done a few hours, which meant she’d done OK, I gather, but she said ‘There’s always some weird people about’. I think she thought I was talking about weird people when I said it had been terrible. Possibly: weird people in terms of extreme meanness.
Then, packing up, that AA bloke Dave came down. He’d bored me for about half an hour earlier in the morning when I saw him from a distance, felt sorry for him standing there all day with his AA sign, and went up to him to give him someone to talk to! So he comes down, sees I’m quite flustered (actually, extremely pissed off) and says I should, and I quote, ‘chill out’. Wanker. I’ve spent my whole life learning how to play this bloody guitar and how to play songs to do out here, and for what? Nothing. And he says ‘chill out’. Twat. And he’s 30 years too old to use an expression like that.
So then I moved around the corner…and again, nothing. Apart from this: a couple about 70 coming out of the cathedral grounds. She puts in two 2p coins, which makes 4p by my expert reckoning. I couldn’t believe it. I stopped playing and they never even looked back to see why I stopped. Then I was just looking in the bucket at the 2 worthless (more or less) coins: shrapnel, thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing here, doing this?’ I picked up the bucket and waved it so the coins went on the pavement. I’ve never done that before. I got really down. Actually, it picked up a bit. After the 4p, I got £1.50 from 2 other donors, but it didn’t make alot of difference!
Then I had to do the bloody lesson. In fact, the lesson was a good distraction from my mental state. I almost forgot about what happened, so much so that on the way home after, I decided to try again, this time at The Butter Cross. But before setting up, I spent 10 minutes standing with the bike nearby, not doing anything! A local guy asked how the day had been, so I said, ‘Terrible’, which I think wasn’t the answer he was expecting. He said, ‘Well, the weather…it’s changing, isn’t it?’ I just sort of grunted. It’s got nothing to do with the weather – it was fine, anyway. It’s got alot to do with the meanness of people in this one horse town!
But that 4p. That sent me to the brink, almost. For the 1st time, I felt like smashing my beloved guitar up…and I can’t afford to do that.
Earnings: £6.92p
I’ve suffered for my ‘art’, and I’m bloody suffering now, writing this down (No exclamation mark, this is a serious matter!!)
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