The Most Dangerous Moment in British History, Secrets of the 1962 Missile Crisis

Thursday 15 November 2012

This year’s Orwell lecture will take place at Birkbeck next Thursday. For 2012 Christopher Andrew will talk about the secrets of the 1962 missile crisis which he says is the most dangerous most in British history. You can book your free place to attend here. Last year Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, delivered a fantastic lecture on the hacking scandal. You can watch ‘Hacking away at the truth’ below.

The Orwell Prize at City

This week our operations manager visited City University to participate in an interview workshop for Journalism students. The bright aspiring journalists asked questions about Orwell’s relevance today and the future of the industry.

Call for entries

The Orwell Prize 2013 is now open for entries. For full details including the rules and values of the prize, see our website.

From the archive

Today we published the very last entry to the Wartime diaries, our real-time Webby Award nominated blog. Since 9th August 2008 we have been blogging Orwell’s diary entries in real time in three series. The diaries start as Orwell heads to Morocco (with his wife Eileen) to recuperate from injury and illness, and end in 1942 (or 2012) as the Second World War rages. We have since post-blogged Orwell’s diary from his journey to Wigan Pier, and his hop-picking diary from 1931. The entries may have come to an end but the blog remains as a virtual record of Orwell’s diary entries.

From elsewhere

  • In this week’s The Telegraph Orwell and his second wife Sonia are referenced within Peter Stanford’s piece Keepers of the literary flame: T S Eliot’s widow Valerie was the last of her kind
  • Orwell Prize Director and official historian of the BBC, Jean Seaton says ‘We need a Newsnight’
  • The Hereford Times reports that their local council has been criticised for the confusing language in committee papers which have been compared to Nineteen Eighty-Four agenda booklets.
  • The wartime diaries

    The last and final entry was published on 15th November 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.