Day 2642
Saturday January 17th 2026
Winchester
The silent Palestine protesters are encamped at the top spot, that weird tall bloke with the white beard is talking to a woman on a bench in The Square and I don’t fancy him coming over to me spouting crap…down the road the crossroads are free and I haven’t been there for awhile so it’s there I plonk the stuff of my trade down…and start off with the Elvis number – after all, we were there last night, and he said ‘Happy Birthday, baby!’ to my carer. I’d emailed the theatre the day before, requesting it and he did it, along with a few other dedications at the beginning of the second set! In fact, he was a great Elvis!*
And wouldn’t you know it, right on cue up came a couple of middle-aged women (they made up 80% of the audience last night) – ‘We saw you last night! Why weren’t you dancing like everyone else at the end?’
‘Because we were in the balcony…’
‘We know!’
‘…and there wasn’t a lot of room and the ledge wasn’t high and I would have probably fallen off and died!’
‘Well, there were two women on the opposite side, on the balcony, and they were leaning really far over it – haha!’
‘I know, I saw them. Anyway, he was brilliant, wasn’t he?’
‘Oh, he was so good.’
‘Yeah, and I found out he’s around sixty.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I thought he was not more than fifty – he looks good for it, doesn’t he?’
‘Ooh, yes.’
No donations from them. And that was the order of the day, I’m afraid. Like so many times, a Saturday afternoon with loads of people but not a lot of coinage to spare.
Things looked up for a minute when I sold a book. It was to an American bloke who lives in London – this was his first time in Winchester.
Gus was there as usual, on the other side of the high street in his Real Leather stall, and near him, two blokes taking shifts manning the FREE BIBLE stall.
I stuck it for two hours then that was it – it got too cold and I’d started repeating stuff.
So, a book sale (a rarity) but rubbish coinage, totalling £26.03 including an £8 profit from the £13 book.
*The Elvis Years with Mario Kombou
There were two familiar faces from here, in the audience.
One was Janet – no surprise there as she likes all the old rock ‘n’ roll stuff. The other was Jacob the busker, attired in his Elvis regalia, so no surprise there, either.