As the student progresses work becomes more a matter of quality than quantity. For the first thirty years though quantity is paramount. Each hour of practice is like a lottery ticket: the more you buy the greater the chance of winning. In thirty years the working student accrues in excess of ten thousand hours of practice. This should be enough to come to the realisation that reality is not what it seems, that the bourgeois dream is a con, and that the really simple things in life – the tears and laughter – are what matter, not how big and secure is my empire.