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Phil Gyford has written four articles:


Annotations and comments

Phil Gyford has posted 773 annotations/comments since 27 December 2002.

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Second Reading

About New search page

Phil Gyford  •  Link

If you were searching for "tokens" then the first results were diary entries that included the word "token" - although because it's not an exact match these weren't displayed as highlights underneath each link, something I'd like to improve (although I'm not sure how).

Yes, to search in the Encyclopedia you have to choose to search in the Encyclopedia, rather than the Diary Entries (which is the default choice; something has to be).

You can also click the "Google" link in the sidebar of the search page and you'll get the same results as you used to get here.

About '17c': A play at the Old Vic

Phil Gyford  •  Link

I went to see the show last night and it was a lot of fun! Dance, movement, music, monologues, video, and other little scenes based on lots of aspects of the diary over the years. Well done Kourtney and co. I can only imagine what Sam would have made of the performance...

(Disclosure: After I posted this news item the Old Vic offered me free tickets.)

About Monday 26 June 1665

Phil Gyford  •  Link

Good point; L&M seem to think it's St Clement Danes, hence the link, but we'll never know for sure...

About Friday 6 November 1663

Phil Gyford  •  Link

James Sumner, historian and author of 'Brewing Science, Technology and Print, 1700-1880' tweeted a few thoughts on the idea of iron being laid on beer barrels preventing the beer souring, after someone asked him about it, following @samuelpepys' tweets. His first tweet is here ( https://twitter.com/JamesBSumner/… ) and here's the exchange:

@angela_mcshane: any truth in this Pepysian claim?

@JamesBSumner: Modern scientific orthodoxy says not. William Black's 1830s manual argues electrical action causes souring, and some of the scientific figures he consulted thought this plausible then. Brewing consultant Frank Faulkner was promoting same idea as late as 1880s but by that time the view was eccentric and drew strong objections. See my book for details!

@angela_mcshane: One wonders what it was that brewers experienced that led them to this conclusion though.

@JamesBSumner: "Modern" expln wd prob be changeable weather => rapid temp changes => irregular fermentation.

About Friday 10 July 1663

Phil Gyford  •  Link

John G - the punctuation (and much else) in all versions of the diary was added by the translators. Because this is what the original looks like: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wiki…

So rather than being "ignored", punctuation marks should be used to help make sense of the text, in the knowledge that they, and most of the letters themselves, weren't written by Pepys.

About Wednesday 10 June 1663

Phil Gyford  •  Link

This does happen occasionally with family tree folk Googling for names. I've now removed that erroneous Richard Piggott annotation

About Thursday 7 May 1663

Phil Gyford  •  Link

Regarding the earliest annotations here – I've now re-ordered the paragraphs to match the order given in L&M.

About Saturday 31 December 1664

Phil Gyford  •  Link

He's not dead yet Mary Ellen! See the first footnote to today's entry - Samuel must have updated the list with "mort" on one or more later dates.

About Saturday 28 February 1662/63

Phil Gyford  •  Link

Just a note to say... sorry the front page was broken briefly - pesky leap years!

But also, let's try to keep things on-topic. I realise the discussion about whether America was "raped" or not began with a ten-year-old annotation, but please try not to stray too far from what's relevant to today's diary entry. Thanks!