tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6496460488742488789.post8997492644060172328..comments2024-03-18T10:29:46.055+00:00Comments on Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: Next Big ThingKen Armstronghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07775956557261111127noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6496460488742488789.post-89179355247223923052015-11-07T11:21:49.610+00:002015-11-07T11:21:49.610+00:00I don’t have many regrets. There are many things I...I don’t have many regrets. There are many things I’m sad about and some things I probably should regret but if I was to compile a list at the top of it (or near the top) I would put: Should’ve gone to uni. This is not the first time I’ve said this. I’ve always regarded that at the day my life turned left towards damnation when I should’ve gone right and seen what Purgatory was like. That was my Sliding Doors moment. I’m probably wrong but there’s comfort in delusion. There are so many ways a young man can make a mess of his life which doesn’t mean your son will, I hastily add, but it is an option; it’s always an option. That said had I not followed my father’s advice—perhaps that should be ill advice—I would’ve gone to one of the two universities in Glasgow most likely; there are more now but there were only Glasgow Uni and Strathclyde Uni back then; I would’ve stayed within travelling distance of home. I would’ve taken English Lit for much the same reason as the protagonist in my new novel: “He’d chosen English Literature, not so much “to immerse [himself] in some of the most exciting, and most complex, works of poetry, fiction and drama in the language,” as the prospectus put it, but really to try to give himself as easy a time as possible. He knew how to read and didn’t mind reading…”<br /><br />In September 1980 I was married, had a two-month-old daughter and a career that looked like it was going places. It didn’t seem then like I’d made the wrong decision. But you never know. <br />Jim Murdochhttp://jim-murdoch.blogspot.ie/noreply@blogger.com