22 February 2017

Goodbye to "Arbroath"


I started TYWKIWDBI in 2007, and within a couple months I had found my way to Nothing To Do With Arbroath, one of the best-known and best-loved blogs on the internet.  Kevin Norman Gray harvested the news sites of the world to collect oddities and ephemera.  In the last ten years I've used Kevin's blog as a "via" for over 200 posts, because his material was very much "things you wouldn't know."

Readers of "Arbroath" were startled this past November to see a personal post from a blogger who was always very private; he reported having an illness which would hamper his blogging.  Sadly, he wrote a final post in January detailing a terminal illness, and shortly thereafter a blog reader found and posted a link to a death notice, which was later confirmed by the family.

Bloggers and blog-readers everywhere will miss Kevin's eclectic approach.  Nothing To Do With Arbroath is still up, and since the blogspot host is free, it will probably remain available for the near future; I invite you to visit and browse.  I note that I still have a couple dozen of his posts in my bookmarks folders, so I may do a compilation post in the future.

Rest in peace, Kevin.

17 comments:

  1. I read his blog every day. He will be missed.

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  2. So sad ~ I found him through you; he will be greatly missed.

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  3. I read him every morning. Knew when he wrote that last post, though. Thank you for letting us know.

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  4. Oh my, this is sad news indeed. Thank you for letting us know. I hadn't visited Arbroath in quite a while but it always brought joy to my day.

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  5. Sad, Sad, Sad. I use to visit his great site daily. it was fabulous.

    May He Rest In Peace

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  6. Thanks, I follow Arbroath and health issue, but death was a unknown surprise. Also The Presurfer I follow and things health wise are happening there. I'm sure I got both from TYWKIWDBI.

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  7. Sad...and it doesn't sound good for Gerard Vlemmings at The Presurfer, either - http://presurfer.blogspot.com/

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  8. Thank you for posting this tribute. It was very sad to hear of his passing and regret being a relative late-comer to his work. RIP

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  9. I too read his blog daily and enjoyed it very much. RIP.

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  10. Hate to see this happen. Rest in Peace.

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  11. I keep going to his page looking for new posts before I remember. :-(

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  12. When you go to a site every day you never envision it ending and so it's such a shock when it does. RIP Kevin, your amazing contribution to the internet will be very much missed.

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  13. This is such a sad loss for so many people. Kev had a posts. real knack for finding odd but interesting posts. I go there every day and read old posts. Thank you for posting this for those who didn't know, and as a tribute to his creativity.

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  14. And Gerard at Presurfer too. He is very sick at the moment.

    It feels like the anchors of the online are coming adrift, all at he same time :-(

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  15. Kev's site was a daily read for me (along with Stan's page). RIP, Kev, and best wishes, thoughts, and prayers to Gerald.

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  16. I feel as though I lost a friend today. Thank you for letting us know.

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