aR

LENNON

 

 

PAGE 8 April 15, 1985

 

 

Oh for the love of Bi

Welcome to the year 1985. The year
everybody is going to recover from all
that Orwellian double-plus-ungood
media hype that’s been with us since
1949, right? Well, maybe.

by DOUG FINNERTY

 

As everyone knows, Virgin Records
have seen fit to unleash George
Orwell’s terrifying vision onto the
North “American telescreen. Sur-
prised? Don’t be. After all, the young
urban professionals who run Virgin are
the same folks who’ve brought us:

Edgar 2000, the personalized com-
ae with its very own smiling person-
ality;

Virgin Atlantic, the no frills discount
airline for the trans-Atlantic jet set.
Believed responsible for provoking a
riot at the Newark, New Jersey air
oil due to a policy of overbook-
ing);

Culture Club , the mini-conglomerate
that markets androgyny. Its chairman
of the board, a former boxer of Irish

' descent named George O’Doud, has

declared war on most of Britain’s
Royal Family and media.

Virgin is also rumoured to be buying
up a controlling interest in British
TELECOM, Maggie Thatcher’s an-
swer to BCRIC.

And so, under'the direction of Mike
Radford, Virgin Records lept onto the
Orwellian bandwagon. And to make
this venture even more double-plus-
good, Virgin execs Al Clarke and
Robert Devereax pressured Euryth-
mic’s Annie Lennox and David Stewart
into doing the movie’s soundtrack.
When Annie and Dave finally agreed,
they were promptly locked up in a
recording studio and given seven days
to prepare the soundtrack ‘‘or else’.

Although the: Dynamic Duo com-
pleted their assignment on time, they
were shut away for a further two
weeks, where they were forced to
churn out one record and two rock
videos.

While this was going on, director
Mike Radford was kept in the dark.
And so, when_he found out what the
Eurythmics were doing, he was under-
standably pissed off. At the 1984
Standard Film Awards, he lashed out
at the Eurythmics for ‘‘foistering their
soundtrack on me and_ interfering
grossly d’auteur’’ (The Face, Jan.
1985). To cover up their part in this
snafu, Mister Clarke and Monsieur
Devereaux gave Annie and Dave the
pink slip under the pretext that their
soundtrack would clash with the
movie.

But of course, this is something they
should have known all along. So why
did Al Clarke and Robert Devereaux
get the Eurythmics involved in the first
place? Probably for the same reason
that Sting was cast as the elusive
Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Dune) and
David Bowie played an Aussie POW
named Jack Celliers who was mistaken
for somebody, else (Merry Christmas
Mister Lawrence): to give a potential

CE.

audience the impression that the
movie is going to be a three-hour rock
video.

To update the situation, Mike
Radford has since washed his hands of
the whole mess. And the Eurythmics
have exiled themselves to Switzerland
where they will pass the time milking
goats, socializing with the local Hare
Krishnas, and recovering from produc-
ing their best work ever.

You see, 1984 has been used as a
hoax by folks like Time, New Times,
and Newspeak, in order to confuse
people. And to prove my point, let me
outline a very simple fact that very few
people are aware of — ‘’George
Orwell’ never really existed. He was
merely a pen name used by somebody
named....

Eric Arthur Blair was born in Moti-
hari, Bengal in the year 1903. Blair
described his family as belonging to
the ‘‘lower-upper-middle class’’ on the
grounds that his family was living on a
small pension through his father’s
minor job in the Indian Customs.

Soon, Eric was sent off to a
fashionable prep school on the south
coast. There Eric did not fit in because
“‘| had no money, | was weak, | was
ugly, | was unpopular, | had a chronic
cough, | was cowardly, | smelt,...”
(Writers and their Work: No. 39).

Vespite tnis conviction of failure,
Eric won a scholarship to:Eton at the
tender age of thirteen. However, he
claimed that ‘‘I did no work there and

learned very little and | don’t feel that
Eton has been much of a formative
influence in my life.’’ (Writers and
their Work: No. 39)

This is to be expected, since most of

Blair’s contemporaries did no work at
their universities, but rather acquired

a broadening of outlook and a confi-
dence in the power of the mind to solve
complex problems, which is far more
calculable than academic learning.
Eton, in its tolerant attitude towards
the individual and its appreciation of

<intellectual freedom, is more like a
university than a school. Most other
schools would have gotten rid of a boy
who, when holding a scholarship, did
no work.

In 1922, Eric chose not to go on to
Cambridge, even though he could
have easily won a scholarship there.
Instead, he got himself posted to
Burma as a wild colonial boy in the
service of the Indian Imperial Police.
One of his first assignments there was
to deal with a problem which was quite
common in that part of the world;
rampaging elephants. And so, when
he received another report of an ele-
phant going amok, he borrowed a rifle,
and tracked the beast to a field, where
it was resting peacefully.

‘“As soon as | saw the elephant |
knew with perfect certainty that |
ought not to shoot him. It is a serious
matter to shoot a working elephant —
it is comparable to destroying a huge
and costly piece of machinery.’’ How-
ever, the angry crowd standing behind
him wanted to see Constable Blair
shoot the elephant. And so Eric took
careful aim and fired.

“In that instant, in too short a time,
one would have thought, even for the
bullet to get there, a mysterious
terrible change had come over the ele-

phant. He neither stirred nor fell, but
every line of his body had been aiter-

ed. He looked suddenly stricken,
shrunken, immensely old, as though
the frightful impact of the bullet had
paralysed him without knocking him
down. At last, after what seemed a
long time—it might have been five
seconds, | dare say—he sagged flabb-
ily to his knees. His mouth slobbered.
An enourmous senility seemed to have
settled over him. One could have
imagined him thousands of years old. |
fired again into the same _ spot.’’
(Shooting an Elephant)

By 1927, Eric Blair was already half
determined to throw up the job ‘‘and
one snuff of English air had already
decided me. | was not going back to be
part of that evil despotism. But |
wanted much more than merely to
escape my job.’’ (Writers and their
Work: No. 39) Apparently, Eric felt
deep guilt over his experience in
Burma, however, a friend of Eric’s
named Malcolm Muggeridge saw it a
different way.

“The ordinarily accepted view is
that (Blair) was deeply revolted by
what was expected of him as a member
of the Burma Police Force, and that his
subsequent political views were to
some extent a consequence of the
great revulsion of feeling thereby
induced in him. Personally, | consider
this is an oversimplification.

“It is perfectly true that (Blair) was
revolted by the brutality necessarily
involved in police duties in Burma, as
he was revolted by all forms of
brutality, and indeed, to a certain
extent by authority as such:
but it is also true that
there was a Kipling- ;
esque side to his character *
which made him romanticize
the Raj and ‘its mystique.
‘‘In this connexion it is significant
that one of the most vivid f
descriptive passages in Burmese
Days is of the hunting expedition|
that Flory (the hero) went with /
Elizabeth. Another is the
attack ona small handful of
Englishmen in their club
by an enraged Burmese mob. '
Flory was the hero ot the occasion.;

  

He, with his defacing birth-mark and, ‘

unorthodox attitude towards the natives saved the hb
situation, whereas Verrall, ‘lieutenant the honourable’,
polo player, handsome and insolent Sahib,..unaccount-

ably failed to put in an appearance {f
(Writers and their Work: No. 39)
And so, Eric Blair quit his °°
job and went to Paris,
presumably to write - books
and articles. But since no one

in a foreign country Mr. Blair has a

little difficulty in finding a job.

Eventually he finds one, as a dishwasher

in a big Paris hotel.

\/ &S

  

“The Rue du Coq d’Or, seven in the
morning. A succession of furious yells
from the street. Madame Monce, who
kept the little hotel opposite mine, had
come out on the pavement to address a
lodger on the third floor. Her bare fe
were stuck into sabots and her g.\
hair was streaming down.

‘‘Madame Monce: ‘Salope! Salope!
How many times have | told you not to
squash bugs on the wallpaper? Do you
think you’ve bought the hotel, eh?
Why can’t you throw them out the
window like everyone &
else? Putain!

Salope!-

A Clergyman’s D
Keep the Aspidis
The Road to Wig
(on industrial
political future
Homage to Cat
Coming up for Ajj
Inside the Whale
The Lion and the
(socialism and t
Animal Farm

(a fair story)
James Burnham
Revolution