Day 2729
Tuesday August 11th 2026
Southampton
The hot days go on and on…this is the 4th or 5th heat wave – I’ve lost count, but in Southampton it’s windy as hell – at one point during the proceedings I was actually cold! I’m set up facing the mall entrance and from the word go it’s a battle against the wind, which keeps blowing everything in the gigbag around. So much so that I’ve got to put the water bottle in the big end to stop it from blowing up in the air, although after a while it’s clear it’s just not heavy enough. At one point a gust throws it up and everything ends up on the pavement – coins (there aren’t a lot), CDs, business cards, the QR code paper. A man walking by when this happened exclaimed ‘You need another bottle there’ and put his own water bottle in the case. Cheers mate.
Anyway…some of the usual suspects are about, including the 50p woman – ‘You need one of those to win…a fifty pee. Everytime!’ And a couple of men who know me from Winchester.
A man stopped to admire the twelve-string – ‘I see you use a capo.’
‘Yeah, I use it a lot.’
‘Useful, is it?’
‘Yeah, well, I mean something like Here Comes The Sun…(A quick demonstration is worth a thousand words and takes a lot less time. I play the riff down in the open position without a capo then up the neck with the capo on the 7th position)…see? It’s better, isn’t it? More cheerful and that’s how it is on the record.’
‘Hmm…yeah. What about barre chords, can you do them on that guitar?’
‘Sure…(another demonstration, this time California Girls)…’ I play the whole song and at the end – ‘The whole song is barre chords!’ It certainly is, and a lot easier to play now I’ve got the strings loosened down to Eb. I thought all this was very informative and was looking forward to a coin from my friend, but no, not today.
Kids these days… I don’t know. There were a group of girls who couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16. They were hanging around for at least an hour, walking about, sitting on the circular concrete bench behind me, walking off, coming back. Every one of them had the tiniest of shorts/jeans on. I mean, they all, to a girl, had their arses hanging out. I think this is this summer’s style but they’re too young! Many other girls had the top buttons of their jeans undone – another fashion. I have to say it’s all a bit whore-ey.
Back to the wind. I struggled with it for THREE hours – a long set by my standards, and then packed up. Unfortunately, I did the usual and put the guitar face down on the top of the stool, completely forgetting about the wind. What an idiot. It was blown off straight away and ended up on the ground, receiving its first war wound – a dent on the front, which thoroughly pissed me off. My own fault.
The coinage was crap. After the train fare was taken off, I took a measly £21.31. Must do better next time, Southampton!