Diary Of A Busker Day 2359 Tuesday April 30th 2024 Chichester.
Looks like I picked the wrong day to go to Chichester. The problem definitely wasn’t the weather, which was more or less sunny and around 15 degrees. The problem was the coinage, which was nothing to write home about, and unusual for here.
I got here an hour earlier than normal, mainly so I could get back an hour earlier and miss the rush hour on the trains, but no matter how early, he beat me to the top spot; Rob and his skeleton drummer disturbing the peace outside HSBC at The Cross. We acknowledged each other as I made my way down North Street…and for the first time set up on the sunny side of the street, facing the spot I’ve been at countless times – in front of the columns of the city council building.
The actual spot was the unused doorway of Marks & Spencer, where that classical bloke plays – the bloke who I first saw with the telescopic stool, which I just had to get.
Anyway…fine weather but crap coinage. It took me almost two hours to make up the £14.65 train fare. After another few minutes, I packed up and walked towards The Cross passing a girl in a cowboy hat singing Dolly Parton with a guitar and backing tracks (I thought Rob’s voice had changed the last half hour or so!) Rob was still at The Cross when I veered down that really narrow Crooked ‘S’, at the side of the Real Eating Company, on the way to the bogs.
Then it was to the benches outside the cathedral for the packed lunch of a cold sausage, cold bits of potato, dried apricot and an egg custard tart. I then decided to get a cup of coffee at the Real Eating place so sauntered back up there but when I got there, the intended coffee turned into a bacon butty with an egg! (£6.95) The packed lunch obviously didn’t do the trick.
After that, down the Crooked ‘S’ again and up to East Street to see if anyone was playing there, because I didn’t want to go back to North Street, what with Dolly going on about her coat of many fucking colours. But on alighting on East Street, there was a young bloke in a wheelchair absolutely murdering What A Wonderful World. The good news is that Rob had now gone so I was able to get the top spot where, fortunately the coinage was much better than the other place. I even sold a CD so that’s a £9 profit.
Having said that, it was still a disappointing day, coinage-wise, although I DID get a video out of it. Louise, a student from Scotland, wanted to donate £2 on the card machine but as usual it didn’t work. I’d spent about five minutes trying to sort it out with no luck but I was determined to get something out of it. So Louise saved her two quid but gladly agreed to my request of her filming me doing Here Comes The Sun.