Day 2703
Sunday June 14th 2026
Winchester
Strewth! There’s someone in my weekend spot in The Square! It’s the youngish bloke who incredibly carts an upright piano about. Luke someone or other. He’s on a break. I ask how long he’s going to be and he says another hour and a half. That’s no good to me – ‘I don’t usually play after 5 o’clock on a Sunday’ I say. I ask how it’s going and he says it’s a bit slow. I say you never can predict how it’s going to go – I’ve had good and bad days everywhere – ‘But one thing’s for sure, you won’t get anything if you’re not playing!Anyway, good luck’ I say, as I’m walking off.
I set up in the flower-sellers spot, opposite M&S…and the first hour is terrible, with only £2 in the case but I’m determined to get through the obligatory two hours, no matter what. There’s a man on the concrete bench to my right – I’m not sure if he’s borderline homeless but he seems to hang out with that lot. He comes over holding a travel magazine – ‘Now, you can have this Travelog or seventy pence.’ I ponder this for a few seconds before he says ‘No prizes for which one you want!’ and he drops some silver in the case. He goes on ‘There’s a kid on the keyboard up there and I was thinking “anyone could do that if you’ve got the stuff on tape. I could mime and get money!”‘ ‘Yeah, that’s a good point, although I don’t know if I could actually do it. I mean, apart from feeling guilty about it, I don’t think I could mime convincingly, you know?’
‘Yeah. Anyway, I didn’t know what he was playing…I suppose you got to play songs that everyone knows, right?’
‘Yeah, or there’d be no point.’
‘Yeah, or you might as well be pissing in the wind.’
‘Yeah, I reckon you’re right. People respond to stuff they know.’
This bloke then returned with his Travelog to his seat. Quite friendly, he was.
Thankfully, the coinage picked up considerably. In hour two, I sold two CDs and even got a tenner and a fiver (a man put in a tenner and took out five pound coins), so all that was fine and the total came to a respectable £37.75.
I wasn’t out yesterday because I had a gig, my second year on the trot at the Avington Park Valley Day. I even did two originals – The Pirouttist and Little Speck Of Blue which might have been the first time I’ve done that one. I used the mic they already had set up…even sang Here Comes The Sun a couple of times. I did two 45 minutes sets – fine apart from the compere, dressed as Nelson, interrupting me on his portable mic as he wandered about. I must have started Bond four times before he let me get through it. Actually, I didn’t mind as I was getting £150 for it.