Day 2628
Saturday November 15th 2025
Winchester, The Square
That idiot Kev (no one calls him Kevin but there’s a few other names I could call him!) is at the Buttercross, warbling through In The Ghetto. Why he bothers with a mic and amp, God only knows, as his unamplified idiot voice is loud enough. But let’s get out of here and head around the corner to the usual weekend spot…and comments like ‘Know any Metallica?’ from an old bloke pushing his wife in a wheelchair on their way to the cathedral grounds. He didn’t stop to hear if there was an answer, obviously thinking it would have been in the negative, which it would have been.
Another old bloke (well, older than me, which now means around 70) stops to buy a CD then a chat –
‘You’re like part of the furniture now.’
‘Yeah, I am.
‘Didn’t you used to play a Gretsch?’
‘Yeah, I did. Actually, I’ve got two – a white one and a green one and I played the white one for a couple of years. That’s the one on my business cards, there’ I say, nodding to the case with a few cards scattered inside. But I get bored playing the same guitar all the time so I like to switch. I’ve had this one (shiny Squier) for a couple of months…does it sound alright?’ Now, I know I’m letting myself in for it if I say something like this but I thought I’d be polite and make him feel special by asking his opinion. Besides he’s just bought a CD. In fact, I don’t need confirmation of how the guitar sounds – I KNOW it sounds alright!
‘Yeah…I prefer the Gretsch.’
‘Well, you’re used to that one and I know a lot of it’s down to what people are familiar with but no guitar is perfect. They all sound different…this one keeps in tune really well. With the Gretsch – it sounds great but I was forever tuning it up, especially after using the vibrato thing, and that uses up a lot of time. But like I said, no guitar is perfect. Like Les Paul said, “the world is a compromise and the guitar is part of it”.’
‘Les Paul said that, did he?’
‘Yeah, he did.’
After Life On Mars? (and a good rendition, it was…with no mistakes!) a man comes up –
‘A friend of mine used to work with Fleetwood Mac (what’s that got to do with Bowie?)…he used to work with Fleetwood Mac, used to work in the music business and he was with Christine McVie when she died.’
‘Really?…wow.’ I mean, What else can you say when someone comes up and says they knew someone who was with Christine McVie when she snuffed it?
Not more than ten minutes after I did Robinson Crusoe, Graham turns up and stands outside the idiot’s shop so I thought, sod it, I might as well do his favourite again. I mean, is someone going to come up to me and tell me off? No…apart from the idiot (lots of them today!) who lives nearby who hates the Gnossienne. Which reminds me, I haven’t done that one yet. In fact, I haven’t done it here ever since that idiot came up to me. Time to do it, I reckon. And I did, all the while expecting him to turn up. He never did. Good.
A 2 1/2 hour set which earned a reasonable £47. Job done…and the warm weather continues but it’s “all change” from Monday and we’re down to single digits/figures.