Diary Of A Busker Day 679 Friday January 2nd 2015 Winchester (Opposite Pavilion, Time: 2:02-4:05pm).
10 degrees says the weather website – warm! First busk of the year, second day of the year. It started a bit slow, then I got a few donations for the 1st. Gnossienne, and it earned a CD sale: Song Of The Day! The CD went to Scott (I think), who works at the Canine County or Country Centre, and while we were talking, a bloody great van from the Zenith Hygiene Group PLC pulled up right in front of me. The driver, who’d obviously had a nervous breakdown tackling the one-way system, got out and said ‘It’s fun around here, isn’t it?’ I said ‘It was till you turned up’ – a remark he took in good humour.
I chatted a bit more with Scott, then he went off and I decided to pack up…then decided to stay!, and proceeded with The Third Man. Before I finished, the driver returned and said ‘You can have your audience back now’, as, when he pulled up, he’d obscured me to everyone – which I have to say, wasn’t that many – sitting outside the two eateries opposite.
Temperature-wise, I was OK for an hour, then it got a bit of a strain. Black Mountain Rag, I could barely do as it was way too fast for the cold. The Rain Song was OK, though, as it’s slow! There was a couple standing to my right and the bloke really liked it and asked about the tuning. I had to say I didn’t know what it was. I mean, I know what the strings are tuned to: DGCGCE, but what is that?, sort of an open C, I suppose, with a dropped low E to a D. I had another bloke a bit later on listen to Wonderful Land, and at the end he said he used to play it in a band in the 60’s, and he used to bend the guitar neck to get the vibrato. Well, to get the vibrato like it is on the record, he’d have broken the bloody neck, that’s all I know!
I made it to the two hour mark, just over, in fact. I was feeling rough at the end, though. I woke up this morning (da da da, da, da…) with a sore throat and running left nostril – why is it always just the one? The sore throat went a few hours ago but the cold was getting worse.
On the way out, walking the bike, I paused to wish BrYan a happy birthday. I have to admit, I felt a bit bad about having a go at him down the arse-end on the 24th. Earlier, the posh place to my right wasn’t putting the tables outside like they usually do, so BrYan was forced to sit outside a common public house – The Slug & Lettuce, smoking his pipe. That must have seemed a step down for His Poshness.
Earnings: £49.29p (Including 2 CDs)
(Almost £50 for 2 hours! I feel bad now. A man asked me if people here were generous and I said they weren’t and that they were much better in Hythe’. He said ‘Hythe in Kent?’ I said ‘No, near Southampton, a small place’. And then I get home and find I’ve made what I usually make in Hythe).
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