Day 2734
Monday August 31st 2026
Winchester
I wasn’t going to come out as I’d done an ACTUAL PAYING GIG last night. It was in the garden of The Plough in Itchen Abbas and I managed to get through almost two hours before it chucked it down in biblical proportions. There were three girls, aged 6,7 and 11 who kept me quite amused. One said ‘Why do you look so depressed when you play?’ ‘I’m concentrating.’
Another – ‘Are you being paid for this?’ ‘I hope so.’ She went off for a couple of minutes then returned – ‘My mum says you’re being paid.’
‘Oh, that’s good then.’ And yes, Alex and Ashley did pay me, by bank transfer, which is even better than cash on the night. They’ve also given me the email address of Natalie, who works at Avington – I did their Valley Day – who owns The Chestnut Horse in Easton, because Simon, the manager, got sacked and never paid me the £200 for the gig I did there on July 24th. The bastard.
Anyway, I timed it right because in The Square there was an old bloke packing away his keyboard so I could set up straight away. I don’t know his name but he’d seen me a few times – ‘You’ve been playing quite awhile, haven’t you?’ I said this was my sixteenth year, which I suppose is quite awhile. I asked how he’d done. ‘Not bad, got thirty or forty quid for a couple of hours.’ He had a big cart for his keyboard and amp and there was a driver’s seat. Nice bloke and definitely older than me – I think he was in his seventies.
A nice old couple came by and said they’d seen me play loads of times before. He had two walking sticks – ‘You can call me Stickman! Actually one’s longer than the other. The ferrule’s a bit different.’ ‘I suppose that means you walk a bit lop-sided…you lean to the left.’ ‘Yes, my politics, as well!’
A woman came over from The Old Vine to ask ‘the name of the song you did before that last one.’ It was the Gymnopedie – she got her phone out to write it down – ‘No, it’s a G not a J – Gym-no-ped-ie – something to do with feet, I think.’ I had to spell Erik Satie out as well – she thought it was one word – Eriksatie! I also told her about the Gnossiennes as I thought she might like them – had to spell that out, as well. They ARE weird words but that’s not surprising, as Satie was a weird guy. Which reminds me, the Gnossienne so despised by that local bloke is now firmly back in the set for The Square. I haven’t seen him in ages. Hopefully he’s moved away. I mean, fancy him coming up and saying he wanted to commit suicide when he heard me play that?!
Near the end, Gordon came by and asked if I’d like a pint. I said that would be very nice and he disappeared into The Old Vine and returned with a plastic pint cup which I put next to the stool and waited till the end to sup. When I was gathering up the coinage there was a couple of fivers, one of which was given by a woman who also donated a little pamphlet – God’s
Bridge To Eternal Life, which I must remember to have a look at when I get home.
The coinage was fine – £37.20 for two hours, so about the same as the old guy before me.