Here's my last word on 1984. It seems rather sophomoric to go on about parallels between the book and our-modern-life but I still find it fascinating that Orwell's 50 year old vision of life in an ultra-totalitarian state can seem so familiar in 2004.

Take his description of the Brotherhood, that secret underground network apparently working to overthrow the Party and (thus) civilisation:

"You will have heard rumours of the existence of the Brotherhood. No doubt you have formed your own picture of it. You have imagined, probably, a huge underworld of conspirators, meeting secretly in cellars, scribbling messages on walls, recognising one another by code words or by special movements of the hand. Nothing of the kind exists. The members of the Brotherhood have no way of recognising one another, and it is impossible for any one member to be aware of the identity of more than a very few others. Goldstein himself, if he fell into the hands of the Thought Police, could not give them a complete list of members, or any information that would lead them to a complete list. No such list exists. The Brotherhood cannot be wiped out because it is not an organisation in the ordinary sense. Nothing holds it together except an idea which is indestructible."

Sound familiar? Let's remix that in a 2004 stylee. Reeeeewind ....

"You will have heard rumours of the existence of al-Qae'da. No doubt you have formed your own picture of it. You have imagined, probably, a huge underworld of conspirators, meeting secretly in caves, scribbling messages on walls, recognising one another by code words or by special movements of the hand. Nothing of the kind exists. The members of al-Qae'da have no way of recognising one another, and it is impossible for any one member to be aware of the identity of more than a very few others. Bin Laden himself, if he fell into the hands of the CIA, could not give them a complete list of members, or any information that would lead them to a complete list. No such list exists. al-Qae'da cannot be wiped out because it is not an organisation in the ordinary sense. Nothing holds it together except an idea which is indestructible."

Which was pretty much the thesis of that BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares which I know a lot of people didn't buy but what the heck. Anyhow - am I the only one who enjoyed the thought of comparing Osama Bin Laden with someone called Emmanuel Goldstein? That's probably put me on a list somewhere.

Most remarkable of all I found Orwell's definition of Doublethink to be just about the only way I can rationalise how Tony Blair came to lead us into war in Iraq.

"To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary."

All this on top of a US Election won by a party whose basic position was..

WAR IS PEACE