Radio Free Europe



(From the Toronto Star)

How soon will Free Europe arrive. I don't feel free.

There is what promises to be a great programme on the BBC this Saturday - George Orwell: A Life In Pictures which is a set of re-constructed home movies. There is no recording of Orwell's voice and no moving images so they have recruited Chris "The Mallard" Langham (!!!) to play him. So two weekends in a row with great BBC 2 programmes on the Saturday. Dan Cruickshank last week and George Orwell this week. I read "Down and Out in Paris and London" and "The Road to Wigan Pier" simply because they were Orwell and they were readable but no-one could have guessed at the complexity and pure inventiveness of "nineteen-eighty-four" or "Animal Farm" and I feel even they are a tiny part of the ideas going on in Orwell's mind. Are we Proles? Who's side is Orwell on? Not worked it out yet? Neither have I despite all the indoctrination of my lefty teachers. Each side claims Orwell as their own. He belongs to no-one - but feels for us all. Airstrip one is open for business. That was never more true of the Cruise era in the 80's. I was a very militaristic little sunbeam then but how arrogant it is of the US to assume that we will take their missiles so that they can be closer to the enemy. (Who do they need to be closer to now. The enemy is being very obliging by saving them the journey and coming to them now.) Is the state of England in nineteen-eighty-four the result of a slow drip of reduction in freedom, so subtle that you don't notice it? Like the movement of the hands of a clock; you only notice the difference by comparing now to history. In order to muddy the waters of re-collection, you re-invent the past and undo history. Introduce Newspeak so that un-welcome concepts like disquiet and other "bad-think" become impossible to comprehend. Every so often something uncontrolled comes along and everybody notices so back-pedal slowly and remove the memory of it. It is only by being aware of the possibility of these things before they occur that you can be aware of them as they happen. Everyone seems to want to roll over and die. The left and the right both seem adept at this.

Soundtrack is more Julian Cope and strangely gives me a slight sense of Animal Farm if that can be grammatical. Just thought about that for a second and I know why. He has a song called Reynard the Fox which has some sort of blasted rural background to it. Read his biography - Head-on/Repossessed and be amazed (disgusted - nauseated and one-or-two other things). Its just like Sleeping gas now its so ethereal. I just Wander around don't I?

We have had wonderful skies this week. It seems to rain out of the blue (well yes!) and then we get really well-defined white clouds but in interesting patterns at different levels. Having said that it is a flat 80% coverage at the moment but still clear in the sky. I must admit is getting a bit annoying just being able to see some of the tops of the buildings in Liverpool but having most of them obscured by nearer edifices. I have been up to the top (5th floor UK - 6th US) and you can see all of the city and far into Wales and Lancashire. Fantastic. How do I get a desk up there? Calling Julian. How do I get a desk up there, in amongst the stones Drude?