Day 2683
Friday May 2nd 2026
Southampton
Dare I risk it? To return to the scene of my triumph? Yes, I do and it’s partly because I went into town this morning and there are two buskers planted firmly in place for the duration – Dean Dyson, standing up near the Buttercross, and Kev, slouching down near the crossroads. I gave a fiver to Dean and it was tempting to donate to Kev, with his Saving For Donald Trump’s Funeral sign, but that’s just a joke and I’m not giving anything to him.
Anyway, back to the big city and this time I’m out at the right John Lewis floor – the third one, and out the mall in no time. Once again there’s no one playing and once again The blue Cross are where they were yesterday. One difference is the wind, which isn’t nearly as bad as yesterday but there’s still enough of it to warrant my right foot being planted on the end of the gigbag so it doesn’t blow shut.
Third song in is Albatross, which prompts a man to say ‘We’ve got lots of seagulls in Southampton.’ And that’s about the only interaction I get, oh, apart from one during Tales Of The Unexpected when a man asks what it’s called – ‘I know it’s the Tales Of The Unexpected theme but has it got a name?’
I say it does – ‘Something like Carousel, I think. Someone awhile back asked me that so I looked it up and yeah, it’s Carousel, or something like that…in fact, I’m sure it IS that!’
Just over an hour in (it’s another two hour set – aren’t they lucky, the residents of Southampton, to have me two days on the trot?) I can hear music from down near the Bargate. It’s quite loud but sod them, I’ve got a bigger amp and I just whack it up a notch and that’s solved that!
Near the end, I’m doing Waterloo Sunset and a young mother wearing a Spice Girls t-shirt stops and bends down to sing it to her toddler son, with dummy firmly in place, rocking slightly. Sweet.
The coinage is £21.22 profit, less than half yesterday’s. Oh well, you win some…
On the way back to the station, I decide to drop into Becketts Music and ask Matthew about the buzzing high A and low G strings on the Faith. He reckons it’s to do with the change in the weather which has warped the neck slightly so he goes down stairs to fix it – he reckons he can fix it by loosening the truss rod…but that doesn’t work. he has another look and sees that a lot of the frets are uneven and need levelling – quite a big job which he can’t do – another bloke can but he doesn’t work every week at the shop and I’ll have to wait til he pays a visit. Matthew will ring me when he’s got a quote. In the meantime, I might see if Brian round the corner from Greenhill Road can do it.