Oh ****, not another phylum

Apologies for the lack of text on the page I am about to link you to but the pictures are worth it I promise. The Strange World of 1984 - from Life magazine. These images give a strange quality which somehow seems to be exactly in keeping with the book. There was a programme on BBC 4 (TV) yesterday about the real room 101 which complemented the Chris Langham Forrest Gumpesque programme about Orwell the other week. It wasn't particularly in depth but as it concentrated on the sources for the room of worst nightmares, it did give a fresh slant on the whole Orwell mania that seems to be about at the moment (to which I am adding of course). It was particularly good to hear John Hurt (Winston Smith in 1984's ... er ... nineteen-eighty-four), talking about the rats which ran straight up to him, looked him in the eye and then turned tail, farting in his face as they did so - never work with children or animals dear boy ... or Michael Winner obviously. As they played the bit from the Black and White TV version with Peter Cushing, where Winston betrays Julia - "Do it to Julia - not me.", my wife said that she couldn't work out why he caved in so easily. Must be a long time since she read it. The depth of the indoctrination is enough for Winston to genuinely believe that two plus two equals five if Big Brother says so; betraying the one person left alive who you love(d) to avoid your worst nightmare would be easy. I spent some time trying to work out what my room 101 experience would be but I couldn't come up with any one thing, just a succession of various middling worries. Of course BB would know what it really was even if I didn't. What if your room 101 fear was the fear of the result of being placed in room 101 - ie being broken by the experience. Would that be a win for BB or for you? I can still do self-reference when I want to. When I was younger it was difficult to work out where Orwell was coming from; but now I know that you don't have to believe that nineteen-eighty has any one message other than isn't BB horrible. You can spend all day looking for parallels between the USSR and Animal farm or for signs of Britain's descent into Totalitarianism in nineteen-eighty-four, but the bottom line is watch out and don't let this happen. As Orwell himself says - "Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious"

I have just noticed that Winston Smith in the Life magazine cartoons looks like John Hurt which is quite strange but is probably because I am looking for similarities rather than differences. Wonderul painting of John Hurt here. I now have Quentin Crisp's voice bouncing around in my head. Today is not going to go well. My aunt seems to remember meeting him in London during the last war. My aunt is in a photograph on the cover of one of the VE day celebration magazines. I have been trying to find the picture on the web but I suspect I will have to scan it if she lets me. Actually, this picture may just be it. If it is, then she is one of the young ladies on the bonnet of the lorry.

Faith! Not Wanting to know what is true. - Nietzsche
The penalty good people pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by people WORSE! than themselves. - Plato
I can feel his mind decaying, only inches away from me. - Gary Numan ( Friday Joke)

I am sure every sixth former has noticed this but it has only just occurred to me that almost half of the name Nietzsche is the Russian word for "no". Too many letters, thats his problem.

Why would anyone want to kill Veronica Guerin?

I want to write down music - not the notes - just to be able to type away and evoke whatever the music moves within me. From the following can you guess what I am listening to?

Little high sounds, the distant empty people walk like you and me but miss the point. We are not them and never will be. The sound of souls avoiding exits from the world with blankness and desire for oblivion. We are not paranoid. We never now the sadness because men have stolen all emotion from us with their plans for one whole mind. We celebrate diversity and then must beat it out again with weapons made from what we call the truth. We do not let the people carry guns and yet we must have them for out protection. Victims are all paid by the hour. We are America and is it legal for us to burn the symbols of any country. When does a man who burns the flag of a country become a terrorist? Define terrorist. Write only on one side of the paper. We put the evil men with victims and they all fight. They only burnt a flag. You burnt families. Thinking is dangerous for anyone; someone might actually have a good idea and then where would we be? We can't have everybody thinking of things to make things better because then the people who actually get paid to think of things would have nothing to do. They could invent teapots which don't drip or a safe birth control (instead of getting some ****** to roam the moon). Go and count paper clips and see where that gets us. The Government needs an inventory of paper clips. Because of course they still need paper in the restrooms don't they. The world belongs to Alice in Wonderland. Well Alice was the only sane one so maybe the world belongs to the Duchess - she was the maddest of the lot. Little pigs, little pigs, let me in. Lets send him to the moon. It must have been years. Rock and roll with save the world if it ever saves itself.

Piggies and Piggies.

Falling for the world.