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Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: December 2014
http://www.kenwriting.com/2014_12_01_archive.html
This Year on the Blog. I can see why people do this kind of thing. The year is nearly dead and gone. There doesn't seem to be that much original thought left in it to share. Also, it's a couple of days too early for looking forward. Looking forward can be a bit scary, best to leave it off until the tinsel is safely boxed up again and the tree is in the recycling pile. So, what to do then? It's been an interesting exercise, picking the twelve. There were things I had almost forgotten I'd written, thin...
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Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: August 2015
http://www.kenwriting.com/2015_08_01_archive.html
Some of the most vibrant memories are of the things we did in the night. One late summer’s evening in 1984, a few short weeks before I finally left for London, we cohort of friends sat in the pub and contemplated the bottom of our drinks. It was an unusually nice night, weather wise, for a Friday. So what to do? It was just that this night somehow felt like more. Something a bit bigger was required. 8220;Let’s go fishing.” Whose idea was it? I can’t remember. But it's dark.". The potential of dropping a ...
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Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: July 2015
http://www.kenwriting.com/2015_07_01_archive.html
This is not the blog post I wrote yesterday and intended to post up today. This is the one I wrote today. I have been going through a period of frustration with social media in general and I think this has been reflected in some of the things I have said or maybe just the tone in which I have said them. Yesterday’s ‘car shout’ was worth writing, even though it will stay in the drawer. I thought about it quite a bit after I wrote it and I think it’s brought me a little clarity. Another realisation from ye...
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Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: November 2014
http://www.kenwriting.com/2014_11_01_archive.html
This is an actual photograph of her. It’s not one of those ‘borrowed-with-permission’ internet image like the ones I usually use. This really is my Trampoline Cat. I think it helps that you are able to see her in her domain and know that she’s real and that I’m not making her up, like I sometimes do with stuff. So, yeah, it’s been good. We’ve had lots of cats come through our garden, over the years. They’ve come and gone but the Trampoline Cat seems a little more special. She seems co...When you think ab...
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Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: June 2015
http://www.kenwriting.com/2015_06_01_archive.html
The Great Rock and Roll Disappointment. After my eldest son got to see his two favourite bands live in concert, I made a promise to my younger son. I promised him that if his own favourite band ever toured again we would go and see them come hell or high water. Sam was twelve at the time but he was already a keen drummer with the rhythm firmly planted in his heart. What started out as a ‘quick-in-quick-out’ invasion turned into a family excursion of the highest order. And all the time, si...But it was no...
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Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: May 2015
http://www.kenwriting.com/2015_05_01_archive.html
Nothing More Than Seethings. I’m older now and I don’t ever lose my temper any more. I just hope this always remains true. It’s not gone away, you see, my temper. I can still feel it inside sometimes. A sort of a seething. I have always had a phenomenally bad temper. It was one that rarely showed its face. One that wouldn’t ever be a hazard to family or friends but also one that was large and unwieldy when it finally did show up. 8230; until the moment I might. A weedy baseball-capped shit-head then walk...
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Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: July 2014
http://www.kenwriting.com/2014_07_01_archive.html
My Favourite Stephen King Book. I’ve been reading Stephen King’s books since I was barely a teen. I’ve read them all, some of them a lot more than once, and I reckon he’s a fine writer by any comparison with anybody. So, this afternoon, I collected the book in its neat new-edition cover and I got as far as the bird-poo ridden bench in the park before I had to stop and take it out of its bag and have a good look at it. My favourite Stephen King book. It’s ‘Pet Sematary’. I read all through the night. ...
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Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: Ken Burns is Teaching Me How to Stop Worrying
http://www.kenwriting.com/2015/08/ken-burns-is-teaching-me-how-to-stop.html
Ken Burns is Teaching Me How to Stop Worrying. I first got to know the work of Ken Burns over the Christmas Holiday of 1996. We usually made the journey home to Ireland for Christmas but Patricia was expecting and it wasn’t a good time to travel. So we stayed together in London, saw nobody and, without question, it was one of the best Christmases ever. The overall effect is one of total immersion in the story being told. Little stories like that tend to stick around in your head. There's a lesson to be l...
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Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: October 2014
http://www.kenwriting.com/2014_10_01_archive.html
The Death of the Blog. Is the blog, as a form of expression, dying all over the world or is it just mine? It feels like an ‘all over the world’ thing but the Internet is funny like that. You can slip into thinking that your own tiny corner of it is the whole damn thing and that everything that happens to tiny-you and your tiny-cohort is happening all over the world at the same time. Facebook and Twitter don’t lend themselves to blogs and blog links. Facebook only shows people what it wants to s...And thi...
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Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: August 2014
http://www.kenwriting.com/2014_08_01_archive.html
There’s this thing going around on Facebook where people are asking people to list 10 books that have stayed with them. It’s my kind of thing and I’ve enjoyed reading the lists. I thought I would have a go at it myself. As an aside, it felt a little revealing that I didn’t get tagged by anybody to do the list. I’m a pretty overtly ‘booky’ person, after all. Yes… Ten Books. There could be fifty, couldn’t there? It’s not like I’m trying to impress my cohort or anything ( steady, Ken. Also, because it’...
