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Five Things I’d Like to Tell Orwell About
And none of them political
Many years ago, while working as a freelance, I was given monthly commissions to write articles for a management training company. Occasionally, I would be tasked with writing about Microsoft Office applications, and for one such, I sought my material via an old TV ad campaign for a mobile phone network.
In a series of ads, famous people were asked which personage from the hereafter they would like to call for a chat if such a thing were possible. Ian Wright chose Martin Luther King, Chris Evans went for John Lennon, and Kate Moss picked Elvis.
It would be fun to call George Orwell and tell him of the wonders of the word processor. Once I’d decided to go with it, the article wrote itself, as they say.
I’ve read most of Orwell’s work and much about his life, and recently re-reading that old article, I thought of several other developments I’d like to tell the great writer about.
Of course, being a political heavyweight, Orwell’s main interest would be in hearing of the many international upheavals since he died in 1950: the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, the assassination of JFK, The Falklands War, 9/11, the EU, and the UK’s subsequent exit, Donald Trump, and a host of others. Also, considering Winston Smith’s occupation in Nineteen…
