Day 2694
Tuesday May 19th 2026
Southampton
Here we go, the first session of my 64th year…and that’s one song I’m NOT going to do. My little arrangement was quite nice – even Duck Baker said so – but I can’t stand the sodding song and I’m not playing it.
So, back to the big city, and I’ve just crossed the road to John Lewis and a teenage couple are in front of me and he says ‘Hey, why aren’t you in Winchester?’ ‘Well, I thought I’d give them all a rest from me.’
‘No way, you’re the Eric Clapton of Winchester!’
I laughed – ‘Actually he’s 30 years older than me. No, he’s 20 years older…no, wait, he’s around 17 years older.’ I had to think about that.
‘Yeah, well have a good day’ he says.
‘Nice to meet you’ says she.
A few minutes later and I’m out the mall entrance and there’s no one playing anywhere! Amazing, all the good citizens of Southampton will have only ONE person to disgorge their coinage upon. I set up a few feet from the massive canopy that’s overhanging the entrance, which was a bit silly because the minute I’m tuned up, it starts drizzling. The same time, a man comes up – ‘I used to see you in Winchester. You played outside the council building. I used to give you money.’
‘Oh, thank you.’
‘Yeah, I’ve taken up the guitar – I’m in me fifties now and me ‘ands aren’t what they used to be. Tell you what, I could never play standing up. I ‘ave to be sitting down. I don’t know what it is…the height of the stool – I see you’ve got on – the angle of the guitar, you know? I dunno.’
‘Yeah, it’s weird. I mean, when I get bored sitting down I stand up, and when I get bored standing up, I sit down.’
By this time, the drizzle is increasing and I’m anxious to start.
‘Anyway, hope you ‘ave a successful day, bye now.’
‘Cheers, bye.’
Successful? It’s cold and windy and drizzling and I’m seriously thinking of packing up and going home. I mean, this £3000 guitar is 30 years old now and doesn’t want to be drenched. Still, the drizzle might stop in a few minutes and the old Rickenbacker’s got a load of varnish on it. After half an hour, the drizzle is still drizzling and I’m now very seriously thinking of going…then it stops…and then I get a couple of two-CDs-for-£15 sales…then a young bloke comes up and hands me a tenner – ‘I heard the music and…wow, a Rickenbacker! That’s pretty expensive!’ And this prompts my ‘Well yes…and this is my 2nd one, actually. I’ve had it for 30 years but I had one before and it was nicked from a pub in London – the East Dulwich Tavern and I’d had that since 1985! That one was £950, and this one was £1,200 or something like that but now they’re three or four grand, which is mental. I mean, really. Anyway, how does it sound?’
‘It sounds great, I could hear it down at the HMV Shop and it sounds great – you can hear it all the way down there.’ Well, I hope they didn’t hear my mistakes because the damp strings (all 12 of them) were hard to deal with as they were making any movement difficult because my fingers were sticking to them! But we must soldier on and I got through the required two hours – in fact two and a quarter, as the drizzle did stop, eventually, and the coinage was very good (£79.58 after the £4.35 train fare was deducted), which spurred me on to play a bit longer.