More Pepys exhibitions
Already this year we’ve had three Pepys exhibitions in London. Now the British Library has an exhibition running until 15 June. Their site has a brief blurb:
Site News
News about this site and other Pepys-related events.
Banned user
Unfortunately, some people don’t know when to shut up. I’ve decided to ban “Hhomeboy” from posting on this site. I’m reluctant to do so, especially as he obviously has a great deal of knowledge to contribute. He has refused to restrict his relentless pomposity and snarkiness masquerading as advice. I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve asked me to ban him before now and so I hope this doesn’t seem overly vindictive or authoritarian. He’ll no doubt take this as more “evidence” of my inability to take criticism, something that I hope will be news to all those whose welcome comments have benefited the site.
Annotation length and errors
I’d just like to remind people to be careful with their annotations. Recently there have been more errors appearing, more lengthy posts, and more annotations that should be in the Background Info section.
Pepys music on BBC Radio 3
Michael Filiksy let me know about a show that might be of interest. He says:
“This week the BBC Radio 3 show “Music Restored” presented a celebration of Pepys’ 300th death anniversary. The program(me) includes music of Pepys’ London (Purcell, Locke, Playford, etc.) interspersed with the diarist’s words read by an actor. There seems to be a gap of a minute or so at about 3 minutes, but stay with it and be rewarded. The commentary is by Lucie Skeaping, the host. BBC seems to archive these programs for one week only, so tune in before Thursday 1 May.”
You can listen to the show and read the playlist.
Tweaks to the site
You may have noticed a couple of small changes. First, any footnotes from the 1893 edition of the diary have moved from the right-hand column to below the relevant diary entry. Since adding the Background Info links to the right column the footnotes have been a little obscured and several people have missed them when they appear. The new position keeps the reading of each diary entry in a straight vertical line down to the reader annotations.
Anyone fancy writing essays?
A thought occurred to me recently… I was wondering if anyone was itching to write more about aspects of Pepys or the time he lived in. If so, maybe it would be worth creating a new section of the site for such articles. Every so often a new essay/article could be posted up and readers could, as ever, post comments. Any topic related to the diary or the times would be welcome (individual people, politics, language, fashion, etc.) and they could of course be rather longer than diary annotations. It might be a daft idea, or there might not be enough people interested in writing things — let me know what you think.
New annotation markers
You may have noticed the annotation format has changed, with the person’s name and the time now at the top. I hope this makes things easier for you.
Also, I’ve written something that marks which annotations are new since your last visit. It’s not foolproof, and because it relies on cookies(?) it’ll get confused if you use more than one computer or web browser to view the site. But I hope it’ll help make clear what you’ve yet to read. The Recent Annotations page is marked similarly.
Creating a guide to annotating
So it seems some people don’t want a discussion forum at all, and some think it might be a good idea. Given there appears to be little immediate demand, it seems a good idea to take a step back and look at what annotations should be. Having done that we can decide if our guidelines leave out other kinds of commentary that deserve an alternate home.
What do you want from a discussion forum?
As previously mentioned, I’m currently looking at adding some kind of discussion forum. This would mean we can restrict diary entry annotations to more specific information, references and explanation, and move longer discussions elsewhere. This way those who are only interested in reading the diary and having obscure words and themes explained don’t have to wade through long conversations, and those who wish to discuss further can do so.
Claire Tomalin answers questions
A while back I pointed to a place at The Guardian where you could post questions for Pepys biographer Claire Tomalin to answer. This week she’s answered them. (Thanks Kim.)
She says she’s tried to use this site in the past but has been “frustrated by the site crashing.” I’d love to know what browser and operating system she’s using, and what exactly happens, as I thought I’d squashed all such bugs weeks ago. If anyone knows how to get in touch with her…