Picking up on another thread.
Do you busk? What is your experience with (uilleann pipe) busking? Any interesting stories to share?
I’ll start. Last weekend I complemented a woman on her well-mannered dogs. She said she enjoyed my digeridoo 
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Tommykleen
a sometimes busker
Last year, I was camping with my family in Forillon National Park in Eastern Quebec. I needed to practice for a gig so I took the pipes to what I thought was a secluded spot and played a few tunes. Two hikers passed by and stopped to listen. When I paused between tunes, they told me I could be heard for miles!! There were cliffs all around which acted like amplifiers - thankfully the pipes were in tune. Before leaving, one of the hikers threw $2 into my pipes case.
I busked once in Normandy with a fiddling friend of mine, and a Japanese couple wanted to take a picture of us. We kindly agreed and they thanked us, saying they were very happy to have heard some lovely French traditional music from Normandy !!! 
To take this thread in a different direction who has got money from famous people?
I’ve got money from Jimmy O’Brien Moran, Charlie Lennon and Prince Harry (he was at school around the corner - i was also playing a short distance from the castle when his great grandmother died - i like to think that she was borne aloft into celestial plains hearing my ropy piping). i’ve sometimes gotten money from actors too as i busk around the corner from a theatre. marlene from only fools and horses passed me once but she didnt’ give me anything. i saw dirty den recently but not whilst i was playing - another time dudley sutton throw me a few coins in london
i had a busking partner once who’d got money from aerosmith and i was in a band with a fiddle player who got a fiver from van morrison whilst busking in Bath
i saw a very famous and brilliant piper from belfast who just walked past me and didn’t even acknowledge me which i thought was a shame ( he also got blind drunk at a tionol i went to and made me look second-rate by launching into a blistering version of a reel i’d just played - i had played my best but there was no way my playing measured up to his and i felt he was trying to press the point home) a real contrast to his partner michael mcgoldrick who loves to see other musicians doing their best and making progress even if theyr’e not a patch on him
on another non-celebrity related tack i was asked to play a tune for an irish man and thought nothing about it until he camed up to me later and said that he’d wanted me as background music for him proposing to his girlfriend
another time i was offered a fiver if i played the sash for 2 ulstermen - i was stupid enough to take them at their word and they sneered as they passed me by giving me nothing
i’ve often been asked to play the lonesome boatman which i hate because i find it impossible to play on the pipes
anyway that’s an end to my ramblings
Her Maj Elizabeth 11 the Queen of Englandshire hath given I permission to play ma pipes at Stirling Castle.No money in it.
Uilliam
No money in the castle?
Wow I guess there were nine that I missed somehow…
… not after Uilliam had left…
Thanks that should have been II..
She cannot claim to be Queen Elizabeth the II of Scotland coz we never had a Queen Elizabeth the 1st.So she is a bit of a fraud really…anyways this is her after I finished ma playing
And here is Paddy busking waiting for his pal Katzy Boy to join him so he can make a bit o dosh 
Uilliam
Here in Australia we have something called a ‘yobbo’. They usually spend every waking hour thinking and talking Rugby League and also think they’re really intelligently funny.
When I used to busk in the Queen St Mall in Brisbane, groups of these yobbos would sometimes pass by. You could pick them a mile off. If it was a weekday, they’d be in their white collar office garb going down to the pub for lunch and talk about ‘the footy’ and when I saw them coming I would think to myself, 'here comes another lot, and what’s the bet the guy in front will walk past me, and try to mimic an Irish dancer dancing a jig and all his mates will think he’s hilariously funny?, and what’s the bet the middle guy will throw in all his loose and virtually useless small change in the form of 2 and 5 cent coins?
And sure enough…
Then there were the people who thought that because your mouth was gainfully unemployed due to the invention of the labour-saving device called the bellows, that they could strike up a conversation with you while you played -
*** “Wow!! What are those??”
Me “mmbvvmm–bg—vvplips”
*** “cool, are they antique?”
Me (smile and shake head)
*** “where do they originate from”
Me “mmbvmm–I-Lnd…mmbv..I..rsh”
*** "Why don’t ya wear a kilt?
Me (thinks - ok, time to stop playing and clear a few things up)
That was back in my early days. Thankfully I’ve managed to become a lot more articulate and can carry on a more intelligible conversation without too much discombobulation.
That is totally my experience too …in these “late” days 
I should clarify that when I say I have become a lot more articulate, I mean I can now say ‘Yes’, ‘No’, and ‘Maybe’ without losing too much of my staccato triplets…any more than that is still quite a challenge.
I’ve heard that Johnny Doran would strike up a casual conversation with folks while playing. I’m so focused on what I’m trying to do that sometimes I forget to breath.
Back in the 70’s as a kid learning the Scottish pipes I remember how amazed I was when I attended a pipe band practice for my first time and saw two of the pipers playing in the circle telling jokes to each other, this at a time in my own learning process when I had difficulty blowing the pipes and moving my fingers at the same time.
Years later I saw a fantastic Bulgarian piper playing doing the same thing, telling jokes and chatting while playing amazingly complex music at warp speed.
I was once told “thank you for stopping” by a cross looking elderly woman. It happened shortly after this photo was taken…
… my dog didn’t even stick up for me.
And here is Paddy busking waiting for his pal Katzy Boy to join him so he can make a bit o dosh >
So, does this mean that Paddy wants to busk with me? I bet he makes a whole lot more money without me!
Most money I made busking was on the streets of Menocino, California during a music festival. One half hour equaled $50.00 and that paid for dinner.
Cheers! Richard
When I play and people start talking to me while I’m playing, I end up staring at them with a blank look on my face. Every time I start to talk things fall apart. My wife thinks it’s hilarious to do little dances or otherwise make me laugh when I’m trying to practice.
In pre ceasefire Belfast I once saw a very old woman hobbling over, and what seemed like a long time to get to me- I thought to myself 'aww that poor old woman coming all this way to give me money, when she got to me she stared me in the eye and said ‘fenian f—er’, hilarious!!!.
James Galway once give me a fiver and told me to put it under my bottom G.
Slow airs are best played when busking
The best way to avoid being interrupted is to close your eyes! Of course, it’s also the best way to get robbed.