It all begins again

I have my tickets, I have my long johns, I have my wellies; tomorrow it all begins again. At 16.30 I head to London, on to Buenos Aires, then to Santiago, spend a night, on to Ushuaia and so on to the Antarctic. All I need now is my backpack, eh, and rainproof trousers, and....

Finished "1984" on the way in to town. Fabulous piece of work. At one point I felt it was a very brilliant vehicle for getting Goldstein's book, "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" into the public consciousness. It reads almost like a sequel to "The Prince". However, quite apart from from the political polemic, there is a necessary and very poignant human dimension to it. Wonderfully written, though as I wrote before it could almost be used as a totalitarian blueprint as much as humanitarian rally cry. For instance, I can imagine Dick Cheney or John Reid going to bed with it under their pillow. For them the battle has been won; they love Big Brother.