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Had Pepys blogged would you have read him?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 13 Aug 2011, 09:47

If Samuel Pepys had he blogged would you have read it?

Pepys is about to be serialised on BBC Radio.

This occurs once a decade. The excuse might be his 350th anniversary.

Were he still alive, in his early thirties. Like the Robert Heinlein character Lazarua Long. What would his set have made of social media?

His blog would have been read as the day's events unfolded.

Would he have been able to keep his secrets for long?

Would leaks of practices in Admirality House appeared in Wikileaks?

Would citizen detective work spotted Pepys as he entered and later left massage parlours?

And whilst we may not witness the Fire of London, or the Great Plague, we have had Aids and Terrorist Attacks, riots too.

The essentials of life tick over as they have always done; we live, we love, we get things right and make mistakes, we carry on, we may survive into old age.

The trailer justifies why a young person might keep a diary.

Had millions been doing so in the 17th century would we be that interested in Pepys?

Possibly, given that those blogs that are published are easily described as nefarious and sordid.

They take lovers, they are unfaithful to other halves, they go to places and do things they would never otherwise have done?

Some would.

Is this the would-be artist’s struggle?

Is this what defines a frustrated creative? The desire to express and share what they make of life and to have actions in their lives worth sharing.

I cannot read Pepys.

He would not have made an easy blog. He is cyrptic and inconsistent. The juicy moments are rare. It is a writer's journal, an aide-memoir.

It is all over the place mixing work and play.

But he never was looking for readers in his life time.

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