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Orwell London photos

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Andy MacDonald

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Jan 7, 2002, 11:50:50 AM1/7/02
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A few years ago I managed to find a copy of "Orwell's London" by
John Thompson, a book from 1985 with pictures of sites in London
where Orwell lived, worked and ate. Over 100 photos in all. In
1999 I visited London to see these places and take some new pictures
of them and then visited his gravesite in Sutton Courtenay. After
three years of procrastinating, I have finally put them together
into a website, http://www.zardoz.net/orwell, which I think this
group would find interesting. There are pictures of the offices of
Victor Gollancz, Booklover's Corner, places he lived during the
Blitz, his grave, and others. Please let me know what you think.

-Andy

Alan Allport

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Jan 7, 2002, 12:04:22 PM1/7/02
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"Andy MacDonald" <a...@alum.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:a1cjla$4hr$0...@216.39.146.77...

Nice site Andy. If you ever make any amendments you may want to note that
Senate House was the wartime headquarters of the Ministry of Information
(MINIFORM in contemporary telegraph shorthand), the direct inspiration for
the Ministry of Truth (MINITRU) in _Nineteen Eighty Four_.

Alan.


Martha Bridegam

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Jan 7, 2002, 1:01:19 PM1/7/02
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Andy MacDonald wrote:

Many thanks for this.

/MAB

ROBBIE

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Jan 7, 2002, 3:15:43 PM1/7/02
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Thoroughly enjoyed your site. But Orwell's grave- or anyone's- as desktop
wallpaper?!


Andy MacDonald <a...@alum.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:a1cjla$4hr$0...@216.39.146.77...

Andy MacDonald

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Jan 7, 2002, 3:51:23 PM1/7/02
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It is really a conversation starter. Almost no one knows who Eric
Arthur Blair is, so they ask a few questions, which lets me talk
about Orwell a bit, etc. It also has muted greys and greens, so
it works well as a background in a way that a photo with lots of
sky doesnt'.

Tom Deveson

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Jan 7, 2002, 4:54:14 PM1/7/02
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Andy MacDonald wrote


Writing from London -- very nice too. Thanks for letting us see them.

Some of the places in Fitzrovia etc. are those Gene Zitver (of abg-o)
and I visited a year or so back, on a long day's walk.

Regulars here will guess what's coming next. Your next trip should
cover the Orwell-sites of South London, where I live. These are mainly
to do with his tramping days, and relate to *Down and Out*, "A
Clergyman's Daughter* and the diaries from the 1st volume of the
*Collected Essays etc", though there are some wartime associations
too. Do get in touch if you're coming again and would like to do the
tour.

By the usual abgo-synch device, I'm spending tomorrow teaching the
teachers at a school just off Borough High Street and just round the
corner from (ALL TOGETHER NOW) Lew Levy's kip.

Tom

Alan Allport

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Jan 7, 2002, 5:20:10 PM1/7/02
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"Tom Deveson" <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:61c4dd77.02010...@posting.google.com...

> By the usual abgo-synch device, I'm spending tomorrow teaching the
> teachers at a school just off Borough High Street and just round the
> corner from (ALL TOGETHER NOW) Lew Levy's kip.

(One half of the group) -

"Oh no he isn't!"

(The other half) -

"Oh yes he is!"

Alan.


Martha Bridegam

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Jan 7, 2002, 5:31:25 PM1/7/02
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Tom Deveson

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Jan 7, 2002, 5:29:49 PM1/7/02
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Alan Allport writes

>(One half of the group) -
>
>"Oh no he isn't!"
>
>(The other half) -
>
>"Oh yes he is!"

Hope it won't be quite like a panto. [Off-topic but on another one -- I
saw George Formby in pantomime shortly before he died.]

It is true, though -- I have the car full of xylophones to prove it.

Tom
--
Tom Deveson

Tom Deveson

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Jan 7, 2002, 5:35:40 PM1/7/02
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Martha Bridegam writes (re TD & LLK)
>"Oh no, not again!..."

Now I've got to double figures, I'll try to cut down.

Tom
--
Tom Deveson

Alan Allport

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Jan 7, 2002, 5:48:41 PM1/7/02
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"Tom Deveson" <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:hCKxVTA8...@devesons.demon.co.uk...

> Now I've got to double figures, I'll try to cut down.

Maybe you could check out Lew Levy's skip, where Orwell used to covertly
dump old prams?

Alan.


Martha Bridegam

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Jan 7, 2002, 6:04:04 PM1/7/02
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Alan Allport wrote:

Or his kippers, which he used to have for breakfast?

/MAB

ROBBIE

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Jan 7, 2002, 5:53:10 PM1/7/02
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Andy MacDonald <a...@alum.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:a1d1ob$jrb$0...@216.39.146.77...

> It is really a conversation starter. Almost no one knows who Eric
> Arthur Blair is, so they ask a few questions, which lets me talk
> about Orwell a bit, etc. It also has muted greys and greens, so
> it works well as a background in a way that a photo with lots of
> sky doesnt'.

fair enough

ROBBIE

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Jan 7, 2002, 5:59:43 PM1/7/02
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Tom Deveson <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:pSCzRNAd...@devesons.demon.co.uk...

> Alan Allport writes
> >(One half of the group) -
> >
> >"Oh no he isn't!"
> >
> >(The other half) -
> >
> >"Oh yes he is!"
>
> Hope it won't be quite like a panto. [Off-topic but on another one -- I
> saw George Formby in pantomime shortly before he died.]
>

Wooh! That's on par with seeing Hendrix. Now if John Rennie will pipe up and
say that he was smuggled in to the Cafe De Paris to see Al Bowlly the night
before the crooner was killed or that his grandfather saw Napoleon at
Waterloo we'll really be rocking.

Alan Allport

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Jan 7, 2002, 6:18:49 PM1/7/02
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"ROBBIE" <poolhal...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a1d9tp$q3dr5$1...@ID-88989.news.dfncis.de...

> Now if John Rennie will pipe up and
> say that he was smuggled in to the Cafe De Paris to see Al Bowlly the
night
> before the crooner was killed or that his grandfather saw Napoleon at

> Waterloo ...

How about Boudicea at King's Cross instead?

Alan.


Joe Fineman

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Jan 7, 2002, 7:03:08 PM1/7/02
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Andy MacDonald <a...@alum.mit.edu> writes:

> After three years of procrastinating, I have finally put them
> together into a website, http://www.zardoz.net/orwell, which I think
> this group would find interesting.

A very pleasant tour. However, I can't help wondering if the rather
elegant building pictured at Canonbury Square can be the same as the
"decaying slum" that Orwell mentions in "Some Thought on the Common
Toad". Surely the actual building he lived in must have been long
since torn down?
--
--- Joe Fineman j...@TheWorld.com

||: A dean has to know how to look at you as if he were :||
||: listening, even when you're not talking. :||

Andy MacDonald

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Jan 7, 2002, 7:41:23 PM1/7/02
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Joe Fineman wrote:
>
> Andy MacDonald <a...@alum.mit.edu> writes:
>
> > After three years of procrastinating, I have finally put them
> > together into a website, http://www.zardoz.net/orwell, which I think
> > this group would find interesting.
>
> A very pleasant tour. However, I can't help wondering if the rather
> elegant building pictured at Canonbury Square can be the same as the
> "decaying slum" that Orwell mentions in "Some Thought on the Common
> Toad". Surely the actual building he lived in must have been long
> since torn down?

I believe it is the same building, for several reasons:

1) Orwell tends to exaggerate for effect. It suits his purpose to
live in a "slum" because then Springtime is more dramatic.

2) London 60 years ago was much dirtier than today, because of a
century of coal smoke blackened everything. When I first visited
in 1978 thing were in mid-scrub, and you could really see the contrast
between cleaned and dirty buildings. Now most of the coal dust has
been removed and everything looks fresher.

3) The building doesn't look any newer than any of the others we
saw. Compare the detail with Parliament Hill or the Drill Hall.

4) From my experience, things change in London fairly slowly--most of
the pubs that Orwell ate in are still there after 60 years. In the
U.S. it's pretty rare to find an eating establishment as old as that.

5) All the documentary evidence points to the same building--the
plaque doesn't mention a change and "Orwell's London" doesn't either.

None of this of course is proof, but it seems reasonable it's the
same building.

-Andy

Martha Bridegam

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Jan 7, 2002, 8:00:55 PM1/7/02
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Andy MacDonald wrote:

> Joe Fineman wrote:
> >
> > Andy MacDonald <a...@alum.mit.edu> writes:
> >
> > > After three years of procrastinating, I have finally put them
> > > together into a website, http://www.zardoz.net/orwell, which I think
> > > this group would find interesting.
> >
> > A very pleasant tour. However, I can't help wondering if the rather
> > elegant building pictured at Canonbury Square can be the same as the
> > "decaying slum" that Orwell mentions in "Some Thought on the Common
> > Toad". Surely the actual building he lived in must have been long
> > since torn down?
>
> I believe it is the same building, for several reasons:
>
> 1) Orwell tends to exaggerate for effect. It suits his purpose to
> live in a "slum" because then Springtime is more dramatic.

And because claiming to be living in a slum would be Orwell's idea of
self-flattery.

/MAB


Gene Zitver

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Jan 7, 2002, 10:42:27 PM1/7/02
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Tom Deveson wrote

>Writing from London -- very nice too. Thanks for letting us see them.

>Some of the places in Fitzrovia etc. are those Gene Zitver (of abg-o)
>and I visited a year or so back, on a long day's walk.

And a wonderful day it was. Thanks, Andy, for the reminders. On my own, I also
sought out the Booklover's Corner, Parliament Hill (just a few steps from the
best view in London) and Canonbury Square locations.

Gene


ROBBIE

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Jan 8, 2002, 5:01:45 AM1/8/02
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Martha Bridegam <brid...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:3C3A44C6...@pacbell.net...
heh and good point


>


Tom Deveson

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Jan 8, 2002, 12:32:49 PM1/8/02
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"ROBBIE" wrote
> Martha Bridegam wrote in message

> > And because claiming to be living in a slum would be Orwell's idea of
> > self-flattery.

> heh and good point

Canonbury, to be fair to GO, was less classy then than now. It was one
of the places my mother lived in as a not-very-well-paid refugee
(can't recall the dates but sometime around the early 1940s). I guess
'slum' is an Orwellian exaggeration but 'shabby' would be allowable as
an epithet.

Tom

Tom Deveson

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Jan 8, 2002, 5:25:47 PM1/8/02
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Andy MacDonald writes

>1) Orwell tends to exaggerate for effect. It suits his purpose to
>live in a "slum" because then Springtime is more dramatic.


He also says that 'the toad, unlike the skylark and the primrose, has
never had much of a boost from the poets.'

Well, I suppose he was right in 1946, though there were already
Shakespeare's toad in AYLI, and Kipling's toad beneath the harrow, and
one or two others.

But Orwell would surely have loved these two, had he lived to see them:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/4942/larkpms1.html


Quite wonderful. Any other toad candidates for Parnassus?

Tom
--
Tom Deveson

Martha Bridegam

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Jan 8, 2002, 5:35:34 PM1/8/02
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Tom Deveson wrote:

Or quite awful, to a half-employed freelance writer with a head cold and a
deadline.

> Any other toad candidates for Parnassus?
>
> Tom
> --
> Tom Deveson

Sorry, no, those are plenty for now.

/MAB

Bayle

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Jan 17, 2002, 4:45:04 PM1/17/02
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Andy MacDonald <a...@alum.mit.edu> wrote in article
<a1cjla$4hr$0...@216.39.146.77>...

Thanks from me too.

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