Search Results for: george-orwell/by-orwell/essays-and-other-works/hop-picking

We’re thrilled to tell you about the inaugural launch of ‘Orwell Day’ on Monday 21^st January. Working with Penguin Books and the Orwell Estate we will be celebrating the entire works of Orwell on the anniversary of his death and in the lead up to the BBC Radio 4 season. To mark the occasion Penguin have released new editions of some of his classic novels and the pamphlet form of his consummate essay ‘Politics and the English Language’. The fantastic new covers were designed by David Pearson. Here at the prize we’re having a read in and we’d like to absolutely everyone reading the essay. So tell your friends, family and colleagues and read for free on our site or pick up a special copy for yourself for just 99p from Penguin. You can stay updated on all Penguins work on this by subscribing to their newsletter here.

The Irrawaddy Lit Fest

We leave for Burma next Friday and cannot wait to get there and capture the event to share with you. You can see a full list of writers in attendance and their bios as well as more information about the festival, on the festival website. You can also still ‘Buy a book’ for Burma with the Orwell Prize here.

Entries are closed

Entries for the 2013 prize closed on Wednesday 9^th January. We look forward to sharing the full list of entrants soon followed closely by the longlists, shortlists and this year’s winners. Key dates for the cycle can be found here.

From elsewhere

The diaries

Don’t forget our other Orwell Diary blogs: his Wartime Diary, Hop-Picking Diary and The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. You can sign up to our newsletter If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

Anna Chen, shortlisted in 2010 and longlisted in 2012 with her blog Madam Miaow Says, has released the paperback edition of her debut poetry collection today. Reaching for my Gnu has already been praised as “brilliant and dangerous”. The Orwell Prize are thrilled to be able to exclusively share with you two poems from the collection.

POE I’d like to blow Edgar Alan Poe On bended knee Like Annabel Lee. I’d like to snort snow With Edgar A. Poe Swing into the pit Of his infernal wit. I’d like to sink low As Eddy A. Poe I’m eager to share His gloom and despair. Dear Ed can you please Give me a disease As cool as the red one Transmitted by fleas?

COPPER COMES A CROPPER A little bit of sympathy at the back, there, Puh-leaze. Let’s be ‘avin’ yew. At the Leveson inquiry The cruellest moment is when Sir Paul Stephenson, The poor put-upon former chief Bill, Hobbles in on crutches and drops a pill, Cutting such a pathetic sight Under the assembled legal might. So small for a tall man, Bespectacled nerd, Pinched lips, he can barely cope. Only a thug like a lawyer Would punch well-honed words At a man on the ropes. He says: I may be public watchdog eyes and ears but I wasn’t there, never heard a thing, Couldn’t see, except for what the reptiles did to Lord Ian Blair, Stripped bare in the glare of the Sun And that wasn’t going to happen to me. A loose-lipped minority gossiped In a distracting dialogue of disharmony, Dysfunctional, too close for my liking, But I couldn’t do a thing, not a thing. Ever so humbly, I suggest you are Crediting me with a level of analysis I don’t have, I didn’t give it any particular thought, No conclusions can be wrought, It was just something that happened, Like the Sun coming up in the morning, Shedding light on the scum we turned over. I am not fawning but we don’t investigate someone We know socially and with whom we are friends. Except when we did the police officers. A big boy done it and ran away And stopped us realising there was anything wrong When he told us there was no new hack sore. We adopted a defensive mindset instead of a challenging stance, I can see that now. It was a cursory glance, Not wide, not deep, We were asleep. If only we had the wisdom of hindsight and weren’t caught out It would all be all right. I’m not throwing my colleague out of the back of the sleigh and I can’t answer for him but It would have been wiser presentationally For him to have done it different. However, he is away in Bahrain and you aren’t getting him back in Old Blighty Until the heat is off, Until you call off the dogs, Until the trail has chilled like the champagne we quaffed as we doffed. Defending and not challenging, That was the error of our ways. We are brave and did not back off, guv, Just because it was News International. We were logical and needed the polaroids ‘Cause the tapes and diaries in Glenn’s black bags were not enough. It was the Bahrain runaway who did not reopen the enquiry. He failed, it is regrettable. That’s tough. Fear of taking on a powerful enterprise is not the case. I did not put the frighteners on the Guardian editor, Or spray him with Mace, Or rough him up too much. Politics over substance, I merely turned up to understand. But there was no meeting of minds, My pulse did not race, You could not get off your face with him Unlike the real press, proper gents we could have a laugh with Over drinksand a nice dinner. Call it folly but Mr Wallis was generous with the Bolly And Yates of the Yard was fond of his jollies. I just did not get it and wasn’t keeping tally, The Met caught Chamy Media off Wallis by getting too pally But we gave him Cressida Dick. A lack of evidence beyond the lone rogue reporter Meant rationed resources and an underfunded force Would not be put on the job as a matter of course. Please give us more dosh if you wish us to wield the cosh. I was overworked with anti-terrorism, The Olympics, Not my decision, A junior did it and is sunning himself in sandy climes. I am an ill man, I need a week in a spa. Can you recommend one? And so they adjourn for another time. But spare a thought for the thin blue line. Poor Raisa, disappeared, turned to glue, Currently starring in a pet-food can near you To stop her singing like a canary, Squealing like a pig at an inquiry. Take the porkers she carried; She knew Cameron’s arse inside and out, Blue heart and stout, Fullsome about Coulson, He put it about, Withdrew when the thin blue sphincter tightened, Purged the toad and found his load lightened. Raisa rode bravely into the student throngs they harried, Righting a wrong for the right, Got the stomach for a fight when protesters say neigh And you weigh as much as ten of them With a bobby on your back. Truncheoned before luncheon Unfree by tea, Scuppered before supper. A hack for the hacks, The sack for the lax When they find out Her hooves are all over this and her head is in some mogul’s bed.

We are OPEN for 2013 entries

Since October we have been accepting journalism and books from some of the very best writers of 2012 but there’s still room for much more. Entry forms for the journalism and book prizes, and basic details of the entry process, are available on our ‘How to Enter’ page. You can also check out the full rules and the values of the Prize, or learn more about the judges. Entries close on 9 January 2013, for all work first published in 2012. The Prize is self-nominating, but if you think there’s someone who should enter, either encourage them to do so or get in touch. Good luck!

The Irrawaddy Lit Fest

This week the Irrawaddy lit fest, Burma’s first English language international literary festival, updated their website with several new names. Writers who have confirmed that they will attend and speak include Orwell Prize winning Timothy Garton Ash, Pandora a poet who contributed to Bones will crow an anthology of Burmese poetry published with English PEN and the prisoner of war performer Zaganar. You can see a full list of writers and their bios as well as more information about the festival, on their website. You can also still ‘Buy a book’ for Burma with the Orwell Prize here.

From the archive

Although not known for his poetry, Orwell biographer DJ Taylor says that in his youth Orwell demonstrated a great enthusiasm for poetry. You can read a selection of his poetry on our website here. In the last week we have celebrated the anniversaries of two Orwell essays; ‘Freedom of the Park’ was first published in the Tribune 1945 and ‘The Proletariat Writer’ was first broadcast by the BBC home service in December 1940.

From elsewhere

The diaries

Don’t forget our other Orwell Diary blogs: his Wartime Diary, Hop-Picking Diary and The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. You can sign up to our newsletter If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

In February the Orwell Prize will be running a series of writing workshops for young people with Stephen Armstrong (author of The Road to Wigan Pier Revisited) in Wigan. Stephen piloted the project with writers including Will Self last year and the Orwell Prize is delighted to be getting involved. On Wednesday The Orwell Prize went to Wigan with Stephen to talk about our plans. On arrival we were given a tour of the town. We saw the canal where the original Wigan Pier had been (and where the Orwell pub now sits). We saw the plaque on a stone commemorating Orwell’s time in Wigan. At Sunshine House, the community centre hosting and supporting us, we met a group of young writers who told us about their work. We look forward to telling you more about this as the project develops.

An Orwell Prize chat with Raja Shehadeh

It’s been a very busy week for us. Today we had the pleasure of meeting Raja Shehadeh who is in London for his new play. Raja told us about the power imagination has to evoke change, he talked about his new book Occupation Diaries and watching the play, Arab Nights, come together. Our full interview will be published as a newsletter special next week.

From the archive

If you missed Stephen’s recent guestpost on his time retracing Orwell’s steps you can read it here. You can also read the first chapter of Raja Shehadeh’s Orwell Prize winning Palestinian Walks as well as clips of Raja talking at events and a narrated slideshow of the book here.

From elsewhere

The diaries

Don’t forget our other Orwell Diary blogs: his Wartime Diary, Hop-Picking Diary and The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. You can sign up to our newsletter If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

This newsletter was written by Dulcie Lee Last week the Orwell Prize visited The Green Dragon School in Brentford where our Operations Manager held a press conference for 60 nine-year-old delegates on the subject of A day in the life of a journalist. The room was packed with aspiring sports journalists, news reporters and foreign correspondents emerging with very interesting and thoughtful questions. Questions like; where does news come from, how do you start writing a feature, what kinds of different jobs are there for journalists to do and how do I become a journalist? Mr Veazey, the teacher who oversaw the morning, said “It was incredible to have The Orwell Prize visit, the children were so engaged and inspired. It made journalism real for them, explaining the ins and outs of the industry and they are desperate to find out more” After the press conference, the children were eager to discuss what they had learnt; one budding journalist said “I’m going to watch the news more often now!” and several decided they wanted to become a reporter. The nine-year-olds will be using the press conference to support a school project. Mr Veazey told us, “The children are now creating their own magazine, using some of the techniques that were discussed last week.” Only last month, during an episode of Radio 4’s Great Lives, Alan Johnson MP spoke to winner of the 2005 Orwell Prize for Journalism, Matthew Paris, saying “I wish I’d put Orwell on the national curriculum”. During the programme, Mr Johnson recalled purchasing Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying at age 14 and attributed it as the catalyst for his political awakening. During last year’s Orwell lecture, Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, also said “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have become a journalist were it not for George Orwell.”

2013 launch

The launch of the Orwell Prize 2013 – our 20th birthday year – will take place on the evening of Wednesday 24th October at the Frontline Club. There will be a launch debate as well as several exciting announcements about the Orwell Prize in 2013. To reserve your free place RSVP now to katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org

From the archive

Yesterday was World Homeless Day. Much of Orwell’s work focused on the working class and homeless people in society and in 1928 and 1929 Orwell wrote three articles as part of ‘An Inquiry into “Civic Progress” in England’. Two of the three articles were ‘A Day in the Life of a Tramp’ and ‘Beggars in London’ in which he discuss the timeless issues surrounding homelessness. Orwell’s experiences of homelessness in London and Paris would lead him to write his book Down and Out in Paris and London four years later. You can read the first chapter of Down and Out in Paris and London here. ‘Shooting an Elephant’, the essay in which Orwell explores an experience from his time in Burma, was broadcast on the BBC Home Service on 12th October 1948. The essay, which is available on our website, became one of a collection of Orwell’s works on Burma. As well as ‘A Hanging’, Orwell wrote several preliminary sketches on Burma that would later be used to form his book Burmese Days. You can read the first chapter of the Burmese Days here.

From elsewhere

The wartime diaries

This week’s entries was published on 10^th and 11^th October 1942. Next week’s entry will be published on 15^th October 1942. Don’t forget our other Orwell Diary blogs: his Hop-Picking Diary and The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. You can sign up to our newsletter If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

This newsletter was written by Dulcie Lee This week we’re delighted to share two very special new pieces of writing on our website. Oliver Bullough, who was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Books last year, has given us an account of his summer at Orwell’s house on Jura and we asked Richard Blair, Orwell’s son, to share some memories of his time with his father there. To contextualise these new additions Orwell biographer D.J.Taylor reflects on the Jura days; “Orwell had spent much of the early 1940s yearning for his island in the Hebrides where he could work in isolation from a world he found increasingly unsympathetic. Barnhill Farmhouse, the bolt-hole on Jura in the Inner Hebrides fixed up for him by his friend David Astor, sustained him for much of the last five years of his life. Miles from civilisation – the nearest road stopped several miles away – and accessible to only the hardiest of friends, it offered an idyllic setting for his adopted son Richard’s early childhood and the solitude in which to write his last major work, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although his time here coincided with increasing ill-health, the detail of his Jura diaries shows how intensely he responded to life on the island and how much – had his card not already been marked – he would have enjoyed continuing to live there.” We will release the story of Bullough’s summer on Orwell’s island followed by Blair’s touching commentary tomorrow morning and afternoon.

Eric Hobsbawm

This week the news was flooded with memorials and obituaries for the historian who died on Monday 1^st October, at the age of 95. Our Director, Professor Jean Seaton, pays tribute to Hobsbawm – who was a member of the Orwell Trust – in a piece on our website.

From the archive

Today is National Poetry Day. Although not Orwell’s best known work, his poetry informed his writing style and, according to his biographer D. J. Taylor, his enthusiasm for poetry in his youth was “as least as strong as any desire to write fiction”. National Poetry Day is about getting everybody interested in poetry, including young children, and Orwell’s essay ‘Nonsense Poetry’ discusses poetry through referencing many famous children’s poems. We have a collection of Orwell’s poems which includes some original manuscripts. We also have the full essay by Orwell’s biographer D. J. Taylor where he discusses Orwell’s relationship with poetry. Orwell’s poem, ‘A dressed man and a naked man’ was published 79 years ago in October 1933.

From elsewhere

The wartime diaries

This week’s entry was published on 5^th October 1942. Next week’s entries will be published on 10^th and 10^th October 1942. Don’t forget our other Orwell Diary blogs: his Hop-Picking Diary and The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. You can sign up to our newsletter If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

This week George Orwell was the subject of BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives. The show was presented by Matthew Parris who won the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2005 and featured former MP Alan Johnson as well as our Orwell Prize Director, Professor Jean Seaton. “A tall thin man sits up in bed with a typewriter on his knees chain smoking,” the program opens on the scene of Orwell’s last months and traces his great life through Eton to Burma, Paris to Wigan, Spain to Jura. During the broadcast Alan Johnson says that Orwell was a crucial part of his political development and central to his education. Reflecting on production of the piece today Jean Seaton said; “People are made of the books they encounter. Alan Johnson is an autodidact; a wise and communicative man. One of the books that made him was Orwell’s.” You can listen to the programme here. George Orwell’s works have inspired many more by nurturing writers like Margaret Atwood. Many have turned their attention to the examination of Orwell’s life including DJ Taylor, Bernard Crick and Gordon Bowker. John Banville once said, ‘his must be the most picked-over illustrious literary corpse of the twentieth century’. On our website you can find a library of pieces on Orwell with words from Will Self, Salman Rushdie, Andrew Marr, Christopher Hitchens and many more.

The Orwell Lecture

We are delighted to announce that this year’s Orwell lecture will be delivered by Christopher Andrew on the subject of ‘The Most Important Year in British History, Secrets of the 1962 Missile Crisis’. You can see further details as well as a link on how to book tickets on our website.

Orwell Art

This week it’s a pleasure to share with you some wonderful artistic portraits of Orwell by Dean Noble who sent the pictures into us via Twitter and said that his inspiration was reading Orwell’s novels.

From the archive

While thinking about Orwell’s life and great work, remember The Orwell Prize are able to bring you the first chapter of all of Orwell’s books as well as many essays, courtesy of Penguin Books and AM Heath. See a snapshot of sheer destitution in Down and Out in Paris and London, experience his fight against Spanish fascism in Homage to Catalonia, feel George Bowling’s nostalgic despair in Coming Up for Air, read the scathing critique of totalitarianism that is Animal Farm, remember his stark, dystopian vision of a tyrannical future in Nineteen Eighty-Four and more, all available on our website.

From elsewhere

The wartime diaries

This week’s entries were published on 21^st and 22^nd August 1942. Next week’s entry will be published on 28^th September 1942. This newsletter was written with contribution from Tom Webb Don’t forget our other Orwell Diary blogs: his Hop-Picking Diary and The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. You can sign up to our newsletter If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

Today we celebrate the anniversary of the publication of Animal Farm which was first available in 1945. In the same month Orwell began work as the Literary Editor of The Tribune, he also began writing one of the works his name would be most remembered for. The satirical novel chronicles the revolution of animals against Mr Jones at Manor Farm; an allegory on the Soviet regime. This year we added the preface to the Ukranian edition of Animal Farm to our website. We also have a special Animal Farm page with links to much more including the first chapter, the original preface and writers pieces on how the book has influenced them. To celebrate today our online fans have been tweeting their first memory of reading the classic and we have been posting quotes from the work on our Facebook page. The most popular quote today was, “The creatures outside looked from pig to man,and from man to pig,and from pig to man again;but it was already impossible to say which was which”.

The Orwell Project

Next week The Orwell Project will be hosting an event at the Camden Arts Centre. The project is working with artists, writers and performers to create new work responding to or inspired by Orwell’s minor work, life and musings inspired by his essay ‘British Cookery’. In 1946, the British Council commissioned Orwell to write the essay in which he presented six of his own recipes, exploring class-distinctive eating, championing local produce and the home kitchen as the beating heart of British cuisine. A eulogy to sugar, fats and the three-course breakfast, the resulting essay was considered extravagant and anachronistic in the context of post-war rationing, and went unpublished, as it remains to this day. The Orwell Project say; “Distinct from Orwell’s familiar dystopian reputation, there is a wealth of idiosyncratic observation, epicureanism and cultural questioning across his non-fiction. His essays, letters and journalism explore pop culture, art criticism, entertainment, broadcast, class and society in a seminal period for state revision and the rise of media; Bevin published his bill on the NHS, the coal industry nationalised, new town centres opened and TV crept slowly into British homes.” From Autumn 2012 they will be presenting a brand new series of events and projects exploring fresh, unfamiliar perspectives on the influence of one of our most celebrated writers.

From the archive

This week we observe the anniversary of the death of the writer H.G. Wells who was a contemporary of Orwell’s he references in many of his essays. You can read ‘You and the atom bomb’, ‘Can socialists be happy?’ and ‘Notes on Nationalism’ as well as many more on our website.

From elsewhere

The wartime diaries

This week’s entries were published on 14^th, 18^th and 19^th August 1942. Next week’s entries will be published on 22^nd and 25^th August 1942. Don’t forget our other Orwell Diary blogs: his Hop-Picking Diary and The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. You can sign up to our newsletter If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

The London 2012 Olympic games has dominated all UK media outlets for the last fortnight. At the time of writing a Journalisted search reveals that since the opening ceremony there have been 6,427 articles published in the national press. We know from letters home to his Mother that the young George Orwell enjoyed sport at school. In fact, Orwell expert Peter Davison says that at that point it is difficult to guage whether he would become internationally famous as a goalkeeper or a writer. In Bernard Crick’s biography George Orwell: A Life he points out that at Orwell’s Prep school, St Cyprians, the academic scores were mixed with success in team sports as if they were seemingly equal importance. He said that ‘this weird synthesis of team spirit and individual competitiveness could truly be said to epitomize the blending of a capitalist and an aristocratic ethic’. Over time Orwell developed his own perspective of parallels between sport and politics. In 1945, three years before the last time London hosted the Olympic games, The Tribune published ‘The Sporting Spirit’ which revealed his repugnance for the evolution of competitive sport; “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.” Peter Davison explores this further in his essay ‘Orwell and Sport’.

Letchworth 2012

It gives us great pleasure to announce that we will be returning to the Letchworth Orwell Festival in September for a debate celebrating the 75^th anniversary of The Road to Wigan Pier. The subject for discussion is ‘Poverty then and now: Orwell and his successors’ and we are very fortunate to have a wonderful set of speakers. The panel is made up of author of Road to Wigan Pier Revisited, Stephen Armstrong; Dr Michael Sayeau a member of the Board of trustees for the Orwell Archive at UCL; Director of Befriend a Family, Jacqueline Crooks; 2012 Orwell Prize for Books shortlistee Gavin Knight. They will be chaired by Katriona Lewis, Operations Manager of The Orwell Prize. You can see more information about the event and how to book tickets here.

From the archive

Orwell’s essay, ‘A hanging’ was first published in The Adelphi in August 1931. The piece is set in Burma where Orwell was stationed as an officer from 1922 and describes the execution of a criminal. Orwell’s experiences in Burma after Eton formed the basis for his 1934 novel Burmese Days. On our website you can find Emma Larkin’s introduction to Burmese Days, Douglas Kerr on Orwell, Kipling and the Empire as well as a video of our own What next for Burma? 2010 launch debate and much much more.

From elsewhere

.

The wartime diaries

This week’s entries were published on 7^th, 9^th, 10^th and 12^th August 1942. Next week’s entry will be published on 14^th, 18^th and 19^th August 1942. Don’t forget our other Orwell Diary blogs: his Hop-Picking Diary and The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

This week we have added a piece written by Eric Blair to our website. The poem was published by the Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard on 21^st July 1916 by a thirteen-year-old who was one day to become George Orwell. Entitled Kitchener the piece is a tribute to Horatio Herbert Kitchener who played a pivotal role in the British Army recruitment campaign of World War I. The Lord, who was the British Secretary of State for War, is most widely recognised by the ‘Lord Kitchener Wants You’ posters. Orwell biographer D. J. Taylor says the young Orwell displayed ‘an enthusiasm for poetry that in [his] formative years seems to have been as least as strong as any desire to write fiction’. You can read Kitchener in our By Orwell Poetry section.

From the archive

Last week, Vanity Fair published Christopher Hitchens’ introduction to The Orwell Diaries which is due to be published in the United States for the first time next month. On Monday The Guardian reported on this with reference to Christopher’s admiration of Orwell. Christopher wrote many things on Orwell including Why Orwell Matters as well as why his advise on tea making doesn’t. He < a href=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105126571>spoke on why Orwell’s novel 1984 retained significance 60 years after it was published and to celebrate what would have been Orwell’s 100^th birthday. Christopher’s consummate piece on Fleet Street illuminates his passion for Orwell. He has been both longlisted and shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Books, < a href=https://orwellfoundation.com/winners/filter/type-Special%20Prize/year-2012/>he was awarded this year’s Special Prize.

From elsewhere

The wartime diaries

This week’s entry was published on 22^nd July 1942. Next week’s entry will be published on 23^rd, 26^th, 27^th and 28^th July 1942. Don’t forget our other Orwell Diary blogs: his Hop-Picking Diary and The Road to Wigan Pier Diary. If you’ve got any suggestions about our website(s), we’d love to hear from you – email us on katriona.lewis@mediastandardstrust.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.