Diary Of A Busker Day 701

Diary Of A Busker Day 701 Wednesday March 4th 2015 Winchester (Opposite Oxfam, Time: 3:15-5:15pm).

I was thinking of setting up near The Butter Cross but when I got there, 1. It was too windy, and 2. Some workmen had a radio on and I thought ‘If I start up, I’m just going to piss them off’, so I didn’t bother. I went through the alleyway where a Drongo related his tale of woe. He couldn’t afford the £2 for the night shelter last night because his dole money’s messed up because he hasn’t got an address for them to send it to, and they have to send a PIN first, but it’s supposed to get to him at the end of this week or early next week…then another Drongo turned up and started whispering in the first Drongo’s ear, which I thought was a bit weird, however it gave me a good excuse to bid farewell, so I wished him luck and went on my way.

At Vodafone there was that Big Issue bloke, Nibs, and I think that must be his pitch, late-afternoons. No wonder he seemed annoyed at my presence the other day, but like I said, he could have come up to me.

Down the arse-end, a conversation with a 70 year old woman:

She: ‘I love your music’.

Me:  ‘Well, it’s all the old stuff, Fifties and Sixties mainly’.

She: ‘My husband had loads of vinyl records that I’ve still got’.

Me:  ‘I still play all my records – no CDs’

She: ‘Well, yes, I mean it costs a fortune to get them transferred onto CDs’.

Me: ‘I know, so there’s no point, you might as well keep playing the records!’

Anyway, forget about records, CDs are much cheaper to make!, and I sell one now. It’s to a young guy who was listening across the road. He couldn’t decide on which CD to buy and asked me which one I preferred..and I don’t know! But I said the new one as there’s quite a variety of stuff and I’m playing different guitars on some of the songs. Unfortunately, the song that secured the sale – The Dr. Zhivago Theme (Song Of The Day, naturally) – isn’t on either of them. I’ll have to put it on the next one.

I was going to do an hour then have a break, then another hour somewhere else, then, after 1 1/2 hours, I was going to stop due to the recent problem with the right arm…but that didn’t last long and I forgot about it. So I ended up doing 2 hours straight through. It was OK, temperature-wise: 9 degrees, but after 2 hours, the cold was really was seeping through me.

I thought I’d make alot more than I did, possibly because a bloke up the road in a van came up and said ‘My dad plays the guitar’, and dumped a load of coinage in the case, but it was mainly shrapnel, as I found out later. I mustn’t have been paying attention at the time.

Earnings: £25.05p (Including 1 CD)