I've been wataching, listening to and reading a lot of really interesting things recently so I thought I'd write about them here.


This book is a collection of essays by George Orwell. What is so brilliant is the same logical thinking and clarity of though which he uses to discuss anything from politics to boys' weeklys. I have to say that though I liked the essays 'The Spike'(about being a tramp), 'Shooting an Elephant' (about the madness of imperialism) and 'How the poor die' (about public health services) I most enjoyed it when he applied the same thinking to 'Books Vs Cigarettes', 'In defense of English cooking', 'Some thoughts on the common toad' and 'Confessions of a book reviewer'. It is clear that he thought any peice of writing should (and does) furthur some larger cause, but he also obviously believed that what you wrote should be very readable. I suppose his style of humour would be 'it's funny because it's true', rather like Alan Bennett (see below). Both men went form modest working / middle class homes into upper-class educational establishments. This give them both I suppose the wide-lense outlook on the world they used to comment on the situations both in the immediate surroundings and around the world.

I liked this bit at the end of 'Confessions of a Book Reviewer'. "However, everyone in this world has someone else he can look down on, and I must say, from experience of both trades, that the book reviewer is better off than the film critic, who cannot even do his work at home, but has to attend trade shows at eleven in the morning and, with one or two notable exceptions, is expected to sell his honour for a glass of inferior sherry".