Buxton video

Friday 27 July 2012

You can now watch a video (filmed on the Media Standard Trust’s brand new camera) of our fantastic debate at Buxton Festival, ‘Orwell vs. Kipling; who was the greater writer’, on our website and YouTube channel. We were lucky enough to have the wonderful former MP Tony Wright to chair. Stuart Evers, author of Ten Stories about Smoking and If This is Home and Paul Anderson, editor of Orwell in Tribune: ‘As I Please and other writings 1943-7′ spoke for Orwell. Charles Allen, author of Kipling Sahib and Jan Montifiore, author of Kipling and editor of Kipling’s forthcoming The Man Who Would be King and other stories took Kipling’s side. Video of our previous events at Buxton – Is politics corrupted by language?, Andrea Gillies in conversation with her publisher Rebecca Nicolson, Andrew Brown in conversation with David Blunkett MP, a debate on Orwell vs Dickens, and a discussion on ‘what makes a good political novel?’ – can be found in our events archive.

From the archive

New to our website today is Orwell’s piece ‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’, an article in two parts that was first printed in the New English Weekly of 29 July and 2 September 1937. In this work Orwell examines the Spanish civil war and discusses the newspapers’ portrayal of both sides of the conflict. This year we have been celebrating the 75th publication anniversary of Homage to Catalonia. If you’re interested in Orwell’s writings on Spain you can read ‘Three parties that mattered’: an extract from Homage to Catalonia and Orwell’s poem ‘The Italian Soldier Shook My Hand’. Also new to our website recently is a poem from the young Orwell ‘Kitchener’.

From elsewhere

  • This week Simon Kuper, shortlisted for this year’s Orwell Prize for Journalism, wrote a fantastic article on the spirit of London, perfectly timed for the Olympic Games.
  • In the Guardian, Fintan O’Toole 2012 Journalism Prize longlistee, explores the inherent ethics of banking in a fresh and thoughtful piece.
  • There was another great piece from our 2012 Journalism shortlisters this week. Edward Docx drew from his own experience in a brilliantly observed and witty piece on surviving book tours.

    • The wartime diaries

    This week’s entries were published on 23rd, 26th, 27th and 28th July 1942. Next week’s entries will be published on 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th 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.