George Orwell’s Diary

The George Orwell Prize is putting up George Orwell’s diary (I expected someone else’s) online. They will put up each of the entries 70 years after it was written and the first one is today. It’s an eye opener:

Caught a large snake in the herbaceous border beside the drive. About 2’ 6” long, grey colour, black markings on belly but none on back except, on the neck, a mark resembling an arrow head (ñ) all down the back. Did not care to handle it too recklessly, so only picked it up by extreme tip of tail. Held thus it could nearly turn far enough to bite my hand, but not quite. Marx¹ interested at first, but after smelling it was frightened & ran away. The people here normally kill all snakes. As usual, the tongue referred to as “fangs”².

Of course, at this point he’s at a Kent sanatorium (uf you click on the link (the drive) it will show you where it is). Be sure to visit the blog every day (actually I’m not sure if he writes every day–I don’t want to spoil the thing by looking elsewhere to see what’s in the diary).