Blogging 1660

Really love this picture for some reason...

I've been immersed in 17th century London through reading the online Pepys' Diary for the past few days. It's something that I'd been meaning to get around to for some time, and this site makes it a great deal more managable by having an entry per day (although we're already a couple of years in at this point) with hyperlinked annotations and the opportunity to post questions and comments. A brilliant (and quite rare) use of the digital format.

As for the diary itself, it's interesting not only in providing a window into a fascinating historical period (the diary opens in the death throes of the English Republic, and goes on to cover plague and the Great Fire) but also the voice of Pepys himself who is often a superb journalist. I've been made to wonder if the small personal moments of humanity he records have a greater resonance because of the very fact that everyone involved has been dead for centuries - they stand only for themselves, and are thus purer...

For my own record of daily life in 21st century Manchester I'll note here for posterity that the demonstration organised by the National Front against today's Gay Pride parade consisted in its entirety of five sad-looking specimens. An enjoyably pathetic spectacle.