Day 2722
Thursday July 23rd
Winchester
I’m doing a quick dust of the guitar before plugging it, when I get my first visitor – a woman in, I’m guessing, her early 70’s.
‘Ooh, I like seeing people keeping things clean and shiny. You don’t often see that now’ she says.
‘Well, if it’s something that was shiny when you bought it, like this guitar – and it was expensive, then I reckon you’ve got to keep it like that.’
‘I know. I’ve got this ring – it was only a pound and I like to keep it shiny and my daughter says “Oh mum, why do you shine that, it was only a pound” and…you know, I like it like that.’
‘I know exactly what you mean…I like shiny things!’
‘Well, my son married a French woman. How the mighty have fallen! Maybe it’s the French women, they don’t like to polish anything…maybe it’s because she’s from the country, you know.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘And I don’t like things to get dusty. I don’t like a lot of dust.’
‘That reminds me of what Quentin Crisp once said. He said after the first four years the dust stays the same.’
‘Well, nice to see you, bye!’ she says and she’s off. No idea who she was.
I’m down at Nando’s and opposite the fruit and veg stall and it’s oddly quiet because the older, shouty bloke isn’t there, just the younger one and he’s not shouting at all. Maybe he wants a quiet life when he’s on his own!
Fifteen minutes in and the first customer is a man about my age – ‘I used to have a twelve-string years ago but I couldn’t…used to take too long to tune it.’
‘Yeah, they take getting used to but I’ve been playing them for…oh, over forty years, so I’m used to it.’
‘Right. I used to play with a bloke, Pete Abbott, quite well known, have you heard of him?’
‘No, sorry.’
‘You play any pubs, clubs?’
‘Sometimes, usually when someone sees me out here and they say they run a pub. I give them a card…and nine times out of ten I never hear back! I’ve actually got a pub gig tomorrow, at the Chestnut Horse in Easton. They’re having a barbecue.’
‘Yeah right. Do you…you know, you see some people in clubs, they tell a joke in between songs.’
‘Yeah, some people do but you won’t get any of that from me! I just play the guitar.’
‘Yeah…well Paul Simon doesn’t say anything. I saw him and someone shouted out “Why don’t you say something?” and he said “Uh…I hope we all keep living” which is the most important thing, I ‘spose.’
‘Yeah, I mean, if you want all the chat, you want Engelbert Humperdinck or Tom Jones, go to Las Vegas!’
And that was the chat. The coinage? £3.39. Bloody embarrassing for the amount of people about. I packed up after an hour and a half. I mean, sod that, I’ve got a proper gig tomorrow.
I don’t know, maybe I should be like Kev, slouching in a deck chair with filthy clothes singing crap country songs like Me & Bobby McGee. He was on the high street a few yards down from Big Issue Jessica yesterday and I said to her how terrible he looks and that if you’re presenting yourself like he is, you’re sort of onstage and you should make some attempt to look presentable. She said ‘I know but he gets lots of money. People give him £5 notes, £10 notes and £20 notes.’ ‘I bet he gets a lot more than me’ I said. Maybe people feel sorry for him because they think he can’t afford any decent clothes so they give him dosh.