This site has been named as the best specialist weblog for 2003 in the Guardian’s second annual “British Blog Awards”. There’s also a full list of of winners and more about the awards.
I should also point out that some people have problems with the whole idea of weblog competitions, and I agree with many of the sentiments. But obviously not enough to stop me from entering.
Anyway, I’ll do a quick roundup of 1660/2003 in the new year, but in the meantime, thanks to everyone who’s helped make the diary and the site come alive over the past twelve months (whether you’ve annotated or just read, that’s you!).
26 Comments
First Reading
Janet Gyford • Link
Many congratulations from a proud mum and dad !
Henry de Jong • Link
Congatulations, well deserved Phil.
David Quidnunc • Link
Good for the Guardian to recognize what the rest of us already know!
David Quidnunc • Link
Nothing much interesting in the "Internet Magazine" squib on the Guardian award, but isn't this an intriguing headline:
"A call girl tops the blogs with Samuel Pepys"
http://www.internet-magazine.com/…
Pauline • Link
Congratulations, Phil! And to Sam, too.
Nix • Link
Damn -- our secret is out!!!
More congratulations, and a multitude of thanks, Phil.
Ed LeZotte • Link
I read the Gardian online first thing every morning and spotted it -- what a happy suprise -- and you certainly do deserve it. Wonder what Sam wold have thought about it all?
cheska • Link
Bravo Phil!!!; thanks to SP for his very entertaining & more diary; and a big thankyou to Phil's mum & dad, too... ya did good!
Bradford • Link
"Oh frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!"
We* chortled in our joy.
*the "entranced" company
David Quidnunc • Link
Anticlimactic mention in CSM
After the Guardian award, this mention of the site in today's (Thursday's) Christian Science Monitor of Boston, Massachusetts is small potatoes, but it's a nice helping:
He says Phil's creation is "a site which will almost certainly become the most comprehensive example of the first-person historical account available on the Web. ... The only question now is, can you commit to 10 years of regular visits?"
-- "Diary of Samuel Pepys and EyeWitness," by Tom Regan
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/121…
ajr • Link
Can we commit?! Of course. Congats to all!
Barry Reich • Link
Congratulations from a lurker who now requires a dose of Pepys to start each day.
Brian G McMullen • Link
Phil, Congratulations on a well deserved award.
You have provided us with a look at ourselves through a looking glass almost four hundred years old. Drinking bouts at the alma mater, bureaucracy run amok, a dalliance here and there, and will those workers ever leave.
So normal and so special.
Happy Holidays!
Stephen Moyse • Link
Vancouver Island here:
Excellent melding of forms.
I am looking forward to a source that can send me automatic-once-a-day Pepys entries (or does it already exist beyond my modest skills on MacX-plus-Safari?).
I can smell Mr. P's coffee, so to speak.
Kudos, kudos!
PHE • Link
Well done Phil & Sam!
helena murphy • Link
Congratulations Phil and season's greetings to you and your family from Helena Murphy.
Zeneca • Link
Sam, I think would be chuffed & hooked on daily re-readings of his own diary -I think he would particularly like the hyperlinks and annotations and chuckle where contributors mis-interpret part of the diary. A great use of the internet - thanks Phil - checking out the latest entry is now a fun part of my day as for a few minutes I escape into 1660.
language hat • Link
I've been here since Jan. 1 and am looking forward to staying for the duration. Definitely a well-deserved award, and I add my thanks for the site!
Lawrence • Link
Well done Phil, a well deserved award, I only discovered this site in November but have spent many happy hours going over earlier entries, and looking forward to the next Days.
Grahamt • Link
Very well deserved.
Congratulations Phil. As long as you keep publishing it, I'll keep reading if I am able.
A Merry Restoration Christmas.
Eric Walla • Link
What Phil?! You had to ENTER?!
I thought they'd present you with the award by general acclamation. Although it may have gotten a little dicey once Sam went into workman-watch mode. As exciting as watching paint dry ...
On to the New Year!
Laura K • Link
Bravo! A well deserved award if ever there was one.
Like our esteemed Language Hat said above, I've been here since January and I'm in for the duration.
Mary Cooley • Link
Further congratulations from another lurker who needs her Pepys shot in the morning.
dirk • Link
Also from the Guardian:
An interesting, maybe somewhat controversial article!
I can't think of any other place to put it, so here it goes:
"We're a passionate, brutal bunch"
by Tristram Hunt - Monday January 7, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain…
debra • Link
More from the Guardian (Review section, Saturday 10 January):
In an essay on diaries Susan Hill says that she never got to grips with Pepys until she "stumbled upon the entries put up daily by that public benefactor Phil Gyford, who has made Pepys the subject of his blog. Gyford will put a daily entry from Pepys's diary on his internet web-log until the whole is there in 10 years' time. Reading the entries on the internet, just a page a day, has given Pepys an immediacy, a freshness and an excitement it failed to have for me in book form. The medium has revealed the message."
Ms Hill also quotes William Plomer's introduction to the diaries of Francis Kilvert – he says that a diary's effectiveness is "likely to derive from a special blend of honesty and appetite for life that gives the power to record everyday happenings while magically freeing them from banality and triviality." Something that is certainly true of SP, I think.
You can read the whole article here: http://books.guardian.co.uk/revie… (The bit about Pepys is near the end.)
Sam P • Link
Just wanted to add my heartfelt thanks, PHIL - and also to the company of annotators who take this diary into a new dimension! I generally just observe, usually because I am catching up a few days at a time, so am invariably behind the discussion. This diary and site has opened up a whole new context against which I view "today"! THANK YOU ALL - and THANK YOU SAM for your commitment & discipline in recording your life for us to "share".