The Last Busker In London

Christmas Eve, the West End of London. It's an eerie feeling to be wandering around Leicester Square when it's completely deserted. I had never seen it like this before. No 'hustle and bustle' on this, the supposedly busiest shopping day of the year in Britain's answer to Disneyland. Three-o-clock and already the streets are empty, save for a few lone last minute shoppers rushing home, their arms laden with brightly coloured packages, wrapped up warm against the biting London wind.

The small merry-go-round that was part of the Christmas carnival in the square was being covered up with tarpaulin, protected against the drifts of snow blowing around the streets. The charity-collecting Santas had all retired to the pubs to get drunk from their days takings, before going home and forcing their wives into an abysmal Christmas Eve legover, passing out comatose half way through, with the vain hope lingering that maybe they could sleep through the torture of a whole day with the family and in-laws that tomorrow will bring.

Tiny Tim had shut up shop and gone to score some festive cheer to make it through the hohoho holiday season. No cold turkey for him. 'Tis the season to be wasted. I walked onwards towards Piccadilly Circus, no real idea of where I was going, just get out of this cold.

How I came to be cold and alone on this particular day of the year does not merit great detail. Suffice it to say that in the previous thirty years leading up to today, I had been dogged by a catalogue of unrelenting failures and disasters in both my personal and professional life. A cacophony of girls had passed through my fingers, each one treated more carelessly than the last.