First of all a big “thank you” to those of you who voted for Pepys’ Diary in the 2007 Weblog Awards for Best Literature Blog. It was a close-run thing toward the end. The day before voting closed we were 3-400 votes behind Neil Gaiman’s Journal but on the final day we’d caught up and got nearly 100 votes ahead. So thanks to all of you who made the effort, and particularly those of you who emailed many more people asking for their support (and thanks to all the friends and colleagues of mine who voted and encouraged others to take part too).
On Sunday there was a lovely article in the UK newspaper The Independent on Sunday that mentioned this site. It was in the ‘Talk of the Town’ magazine, which is only available in and around London but you can read qB’s original article here, or my scans of the story as it appeared: Page 1, Page 2. It’s one of those things that helps make this all worth while.
There was a bit about the site in the issue of Web User that just left the UK newsstands; I didn’t read it, so I’m not sure what it said. I’ll also be interviewed by Valerie Richardson on WPKN in Bridgeport, Connecticut at around 10.30am local time today.
The New York Times has an article which is mostly about Pepys, this site and comparing weblogs in general to Pepys’ style. Be a bit careful though; some huge interactive GE advert on the page locked my browser up for several minutes until I could get Back off the page (using Mozilla on Mac OS X); I resorted to Lynx. (Thanks Gerry.)
The local newspaper from where I grew up has published a short piece about the site. The Witham and Braintree Times isn’t online in any useful form so here’s the article for your entertainment and my embarrassment:
On Tuesday 21st January at around 1.40pm GMT I’ll be interviewed live on BBC Radio London’s Robert Elms show about this site. It should be fun and you can listen live online. I don’t think it’s archived unfortunately.
Among many weblog entries about this site over the past few weeks, this one by Greg Elin is perhaps the most enthusiastic. Pointing this out might seem like I’m blowing my own trumpet, but that’s not my intention… the feature Elin raves most about is the annotations which, with a handful of exceptions, are not my work. The point is it’s the willingness of you to research and post useful information and links that makes this site, and the rest of the internet, quite so interesting. I was able to take some free text (from Project Gutenberg), publish it using free technology (such as PHP and Movable Type) and enable people to share knowledge. This is what it’s all about.
There are a few paragraphs about the site in today’s ‘Circuits’ section of The New York Times (half way down the page). And ABC 702 Sydney radio in Australia broadcast a recorded interview with me about Pepys’ Diary a week or so ago, although there are no online archives. Maybe that’s a good thing.
