I'm enjoying all the Orwell stuff on the BBC just now. George Orwell: My Life In Pictures was really enjoyable, although the choices they'd made about how to tell the story were really up front, and there was something a bit simplistic about the main component of the narrative, which was 'bullied for bedwetting at 8 years old leads to lifelong commitment to fighting totalitarianism' (or is it my interpretation that's simplistic?)

It seems particularly relevant today when parliament is trying to work out the size of the lies that led to the war in Iraq. I'm still not totally sure what I think about the Iraq thing but I know the way our government got us there was wrong.

I'm also enjoying the essays being read every day on radio 4.

Today's started with 'Confessions of a book reviewer' which is very funny and also relevant since I've just been reading Jonathan's review of two books that some editor thought would 'go well together'

That was followed by a discussion of borrowings in English, which was amusing and opinionated. He mentioned a few borrowings from German which followed the war. 'Schadenfreude' wasn't one of them, though.

B-)