Slippery Slope

Wide Wednesday: Slippery Slope

Today's Wide Wednesday challenge required a "people scene".  Hopefully this one of a busker trying his luck in Bath today will meet the requirement. I don't know why but for some reason I was drawn to taking it on an angle, not something that I normally do, but I think the composition works on a number of levels.

Bath was far from full of visitors, but at least this chap had a dry day for it today.  Broke and hungry he may be, but he was not the best busker (he's not one of the City's licensed buskers and had no CDs to sell), but he clearly needed the money badly and as I had taken this shot the least I could do was to make a contribution. 

Life's tough out there for everyone, but its particularly tough on youngsters at the moment.  They've been called the snowflake generation in the media, but I'm very glad that I went to University back in 1978.  That first year at Uni involved a lot of adjustment and growing up.  I'd hate to be trying to do that in University accommodation  during lockdown....... while paying for the privilege.

Finally, with that reference to 1978 in mind, I didn't want to omit the passing yesterday of Edward (Eddie) Van Halen at 65.  

He arrived on the scene in 1978 when it was no longer cool to be a rock guitarist - all my friends and I were into Punk and New Wave, with some grudging respect for the established rock dinosaurs of the early '70s.  As a result, for years Van Halen were a bit of a guilty pleasure; great to listen to but not something you wanted to talk to mates about, unless they were guitar players.  But the guitar players all got Eddie.  How could they not?  

I've never managed to play anything like Eddie, Years ago, I sensibly accepted that I just don't have the innate musical ability and technical proficiency required and saved myself the thousands of hours practice that would have been required to reach the same conclusion.  But this evening, I shall be putting that first Van Halen album on and turning up the volume.