South East beers - Tuesdays @ The Roebuck, SE1 4YG

I TOTALLY agree, but I'm so far behind in technology that I wanted a chance to play with some stuff on my own first, and to get my computer set up to tip top shape.

And I've taken courses from this school before, they are really good.

Do you know of any good illustrator courses?

Not really to be honest, although photoshop is well worth looking at to, if not essential, I mean ideally someone big into the illustration side of things would have a good working knowledge of both, as they work well in unison, obviously vector art is incredible useful due to its scalability without loss of resolution, but there are some things that PS just "does better", plus I think PS is much faster and more intuitive to use for a lot of things.
I would start with some good books, i've got a couple you can borrow, one or two relating specifically to illustration, will try and get them down from my parents and bring them next week if you want?