Roll Call. Say hello!
12 May 2012
Some time ago Laura K suggested we have a roll call for readers of the diary to say hello. This seems like a good time.
Site News
News about this site and other Pepys-related events.
Expect more visitors this month
1 May 2012
As we approach the end of the diary there’s a chance this site will attract some publicity. I’m not going out of my way to get lots of coverage, but then I didn’t when the site started and there was quite a bit! I mention this because if there is publicity then we will have many more visitors to our friendly part of the web.
End of Diary Events Update
24 April 2012
Both the previous posts about end-of-diary events in London and Massachusetts have been updated, so I thought it might be worth highlighting those here.
Planning for 26th May in London
14 March 2012
As mentioned late last year we are planning to round off our journey through the diary with a small celebration in London on Saturday 26th May 2012. It’s only a couple of months away, so I’d like to get some idea of how many people will be coming.
Family Tree updated
13 February 2012
In case you like to keep an updated version of the Pepys Family Tree to hand, I’ve just made a couple of small updates to it. I’ve added Babs and Betty, daughters of Roger Pepys, and his new wife, Esther (all over on the far right). I’ve also added Elizabeth Pickering’s 1668 marriage to John Creed, which had gone unrecorded.
Letters between Pepys and Evelyn on the site
10 February 2012
I’ve just added a new section to the site, for letters to and from Samuel Pepys. It currently lists a selection of letters between Pepys and the era’s other major diarist, John Evelyn.
Recent Activity page is back
3 February 2012
I had a brainwave about how the Recent Activity page is generated and it seems to work. The page is now re-created every five minutes and seems to do so without keeping the database occupied for ages like it used to. Fingers crossed it’ll keep working like this from now on.
Recent Activity page out of action
2 February 2012
I’m afraid I’ve had to stop the Recent Activity page from updating again. The database queries that make these listings are very slow and they’re holding up other features of the site, such as posting annotations.
End of the Diary in Massachusetts
31 January 2012
For those unable to make it to the end-of-Diary gathering in London, but might be closer to Massachusetts, here’s something for you!
Recent Activity page problems
21 January 2012
You may have noticed that the Recent Activity page has been problematic this past week, with the lists of recently-commented-on pages disappearing. It’s all back now, and working OK, but it won’t be updating as frequently as it used to.
What happens to this website after the diary ends
3 January 2012
I keep getting asked what will happen to the website when the diary ends in 2012 (or 1669). And so that I have one place to point people for the answer, here’s the current plan, such as it is.
Interview on Irish radio
13 December 2011
A few weeks ago I met Regan Hutchins near Seething Lane and he recorded us chatting about Pepys for Culture File on the Irish radio station RTE Lyric FM.
The interview was broadcast on 2nd December and you can listen to it as an MP3 here.
End of the diary in London, May 2012
27 November 2011
As most of you are probably aware, the diary ends next year. (Apologies if this is a spoiler for you, but I fear this particular surprise is unavoidable.) It would be great to see Sam off with a gathering in London for anyone who’s able to make it.
Daily London weather descriptions
12 November 2011
I’ve just added another little piece of period data to the sidebar, which you’ll see on all diary entries from 11 November 1668 onwards: A brief description of the day’s weather, taken from John Gadbury’s London Weather Diary. That particular day, for example, was described as “Great winds and rain at night”.
Pepys family tree updated
14 October 2011
If anyone likes to keep the latest version of the extended Pepys family tree to hand, you should note that I’ve just updated it. The only addition is some of the Pickerings, distant relatives of Samuel by marriage through the Montagus. Let me know if you ever think of more people who can be added to this ever-growing chart!
New BBC Pepys radio drama
4 August 2011
The BBC Radio 4 show, Woman’s Hour is soon going to be featuring a drama based on Samuel Pepys’ diary. There will be five 15 minute episodes, broadcast at 10.45am (UK time) from Monday 15th to Friday 19th August. Here’s the press release from this page:
Site problems (fixed)
7 July 2011
Apologies for the formatting problems on the site at the moment. I won’t be able to fix them for a few days. Thanks for your patience.
Update: I’ve managed to patch things up a bit so most of the broken pages should look OK. Many of the “tooltip” info boxes won’t appear over links, and other things might still be broken, but I’ll be able to fix those in a few days. (10.56pm, UK time)
Update 2: The site should be back to normal now. For some reason Movable Type (the software this site runs on) had truncated the template which is used to generate the start of each page. This meant that lots of the crucial code was missing from any newly-created or updated pages. (Monday 11th July)
Combatting spam annotations
26 June 2011
Over the last few days there has been an increasing amount of spam annotations appearing. I’ve now added an extra question to the annotations form which will hopefully prevent automated spammers from successfully posting things. It’s a simple enough question that you shouldn’t have any problems with it!
Pepys and the Playhouse
21 May 2011
Anyone in London next month might be interested in this “dramatic reading” about Samuel Pepys and the theatre. Here’s the full blurb:
My talk about the diary as an online story
13 April 2011
I’ve given a talk about this website three times in recent months, and the most recent event, SkillSwap Seeking Stories, has put up an audio recording of my talk. I’ve also put up the slides I used that evening, so you can try recreating the talk in the comfort of your own chair…