It's hard to be a gambler

I'm looking into extending my music teaching into schools, but I haven't got too many qualifications, so it looks like I'm going to do a course with the Open University. A Diploma in Music, that'll be the one.
Y'know, this education thing is wonderful. I see if you earn less than 16k, you get to do these courses for nothing. And the qualifications you get are proper ones, not silly make believe certificates knocked up using ms publisher, proper degrees that mean you can get decent jobs if you put the work in. I'm so impressed with it all.
And of course, it's made me even less sympathetic towards stay at home scroungers who whinge about having no chance in life. . But let's not go there again eh?
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Played for ages today a really enjoyed it. I gave extra time at the country club and then played for an hour in an altzeimers unit. Not Vegas, but very satisfying and rewarding in ways I never realised.
But I'm back amongst groovy young people again soon, when I start a new booking at Wolverhampton's largest Indian Restaurant. Got my own stage and everything, should be fun!
I'll be here . .

I don't care for curry by the way, but y'know, when I was twenty one I spent a not so fragrant hot summer working in a sewage farm, so it's not all doom and gloom.
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Missed two good things this weekend. Julian Cope in Liverpool, who played, by all accounts, a kick-ass good set, and the 'open day' for the Devil's Quoits, a recently rebuilt megalithic delight. My favourite type, a henge with standing stones.
I'd say the picture below is courtesy of Jane Tomlinson, but it's not, on account I didn't ask her and just stole it from her weblog (link on the right). Sorry Jane!

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I'm getting old. I'm the same age as Elvis when he died (I had a birthday last week). Bollocks to this age malarky. I hate the stigma and even more I hate the changes.
But at least you get the wisdom and the confidence along with the wrinkles and aches and pains. . . mostly
When you're seventeen you think you know everything. You think you've invented rebellion, sex, music and having a good time and all that that involves.
As you get older you learn you actually knew fuck all, and you were just an spotty oink.
And that's the first great lesson in life. Whatever you think you are, you're not. I once read a statistic where almost half the male UK population considered themselves good looking. Well, I've been to Asda. . it's not even ten per cent, is it? We're all deluding ourselves over something.
Second lesson in life. People aren't good or bad. They are a mixture. That's all, nothing more to say on that. Even Hitler made nice paintings (I'm told).
Lesson in life number three. There's no god and it's all the luck of the draw. Born with no arms? sorry, it's just bad luck. That's the way it is. Kids with cancer, blind people, whatever. There's no plan, no reward for suffering, it's a shithole of a lottery this life. You got brains and health and two on the outside and one in the middle and born in the West? You lucky bugger. Now do what Rocky Balboa says and "go and get what you're worth".

Another ramble, innit?