Day 2627
Thursday November 13th 2025
Winchester
1. The Buttercross
2. In front of Marks & Spencer
All I can say is it better go better than yesterday…a lot better or I’m hanging the old guitar up for good!
Back out with the shiny Squire because I’m too lazy to bring the 12-string out, because I have to work at that but I will, soon.
Gordon comes out of his flat opposite the top spot, waves and smiles to me and he’s off to The Square…five minutes later he’s back – ‘Forgot my phone, can’t pay for my coffee!’ back to his flat and out again a minute later back to The Square…and his coffee.
During Cavatina, Karen stops to educate me on its origins –
‘I remember hearing it in The Deer Hunter and thinking, “that’s from another film from a couple of years earlier, The Walking Stick with David Hemmings,” but ever since The Deer Hunter, people think that’s where it was from, where it was first used.’
Well yes, that’s where I first heard it. Oh well, you learn something new every day out here…sometimes.
I said it had better go better than yesterday but it certainly looked like a repeat, here at the top spot, because after an hour and five minutes, I’ve made a whopping £4.50. That’s no good so it’s time for a visit to the toilet then set up somewhere else…and that somewhere else is in front of Marks & Spencer – there was a trader in front of the Nando’s spot across the road, my first choice. So I’ve returned to the scene of literally hundreds of my former crimes going back thirteen years or more, when I started out.
It starts off very slow, coinage-wise, and I’m thinking “sod this, I’m packing up” but it picked up and I ended up with £18. I managed an hour and fifteen minutes before I had to stop due to the noise from the rehearsal for the Christmas lights switch on, which is tonight, down to the left on The Broadway. They’d set up a big stage and the different acts were going through their paces. Some were quiet so I could carry on but one was quite a bit louder and I couldn’t compete.
In the Chronicle with my letter, was another one asking where Jacob the Busker had got to – the reader, Mark Rowe, said he hadn’t seen him in a long time and that he “brings hope and joy to everyone…I hope Jacob returns for Children in Need as he’s a legend.” Well Mark, you’re in luck. Jacob has definitely returned, as Santa Claus. I knew it was him even though I could barely see his face (hat and white beard, obviously). He came up to say hello – he’s always friendly, much more than I am! so I hope Mark sees him soon. I reckon he’s got a few weeks left.
Anyway, once again the temperature is practically tropical at 15 degrees and the total coinage of £22.58 WAS an improvement of yesterday, of almost seismic proportions so it doesn’t look like I’ll be hanging up the guitar just yet.
Before I cycled home I had a closer look at the stage – there was a bunch of disabled kids doing a Queen medley. Two guitarists, one with Down’s Syndrome who didn’t have his guitar plugged in, bless him, but he was having a wail of a time.