1984(14): Tobacco rationing

From "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell:

He [Parsons] had lugged out a huge and filthy pipe which was already half full of charred tobacco. With the tobacco ration at a hundred grammes per week it was seldom possible to fill a pipe up to the top. Winston [Smith] was smoking a Victory Cigarette which he carefully held horizontally. The new ration did not start till tomorrow and he had only four cigarettes left.

One hundred grammes per week = half an ounce per day (what we smokers colloquially refer to as 'half an ounce' is in fact slightly less, or 12.5 grammes in NewSpeak), quite enough for thirty or so rollies, which is roughly what I get through. So if George Orwell saw this as a cruel restriction, it does beg the question as to how much he smoked. But never mind, George Orwell saw tobacco rationing as just one of a thousand ways in which an authoritarian State would infringe individual liberties.

So it's interesting to note that one of Paul Flynn MP's* most noteworthy comments on being sent a copy of 1984, just to remind him that it was a warning not an instruction manual, was "Previously, the anti-smoking ban people have traded on the concept of 'freedom' rather than the ban. Reading the document that came with the book I formed the impression from the final sentences that the smoking ban was the main complaint."

* Who can't spell Leg-Iron.

1984 (11): The End Of Science

"In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science'. The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty... But in matters of vital importance - meaning in effect, war and police espionage - the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated..." (George Orwell, '1984').

This is triggered by DK's post about some bastard MP who said "Global warming deniers have undermined well-founded public alarm on Global Warming. Panic is our only hope... Today's Observer poll suggests that six out ten Britons are not convinced that global warming is the supremely vital issue. The public fear must be cranked up again."

Trixy comments: "I am reading 1984 so I can find out which chapter the government are on and have an advanced warning of what will happen next.".

Well, there's your answer. 'Science', in the context of Global Cooling, is an instrument to crank up 'public fear' and to give the gummint yet another pretext for controlling and monitoring people's behaviour. Just like The Book* said.

* Strictly speaking, the above quote is from a book-within-a-book, that book in turn is 'The Theory And Practice Of Oligarchal Collectivism' by Emmanuel Goldstein, which is in turn ghost-written by senior Party member O'Brien. But hey.