Diary Of A Busker day 2484 Wednesday January 22nd 2024 Winchester.
The top spot was taken so I went down to the crossroads (there’s a song there). There were two bins on the corner, outside Starbucks, and I was wondering whether they were going to come out and put some more there when a young bloke came out with another one. I asked if that was it and he said there were four more to come out so I thought fuck it, I’m not setting up in front of a load of fucking bins! I set up on the other side of the high street, directly opposite the Starbucks door, which was open but not for long. It was shut by this bloke immediately after I started playing.
This was the debut of my Aria nylon string guitar, delivered a few hours earlier. It’s got a pickup and is a single cutaway so I can reach some of the higher frets and do a couple more songs that I can’t do on my other classical guitar. Unfortunately, like all these sorts of guitars, there are no fret markers, which I seriously need or I freak out because I don’t know where I am, even after almost half a century of playing the guitar. I think it’s because I’m rubbish! Anyway, before I came out I got some white acrylic paint and painted some dots on it but I rushed it and didn’t do a very good job of it. In fact, it’s so bad it looks like they were done by someone having an epileptic fit. It’ll do for now but they’ll all have to be redone pretty soon because it’s fucking embarrassing! Also – again, like all these sorts of guitars, there’s no strap button on the heel (I’ll have to get Mr. Hayward to sort that out later) so in the meantime I’ve got a shoestring tied around the headstock.
I managed an hour – it was quite cold and my fingers were suffering, even putting my hands in my pockets after every song didn’t help much. Oh well, I took just under £15, which was OK and broke in yet another guitar.