Monday, May 09, 2011

Like a black fly in your chardonnay...

Apparently the Barcelona city government unbellyfeels irony.

To quote Chairman O'Rourke, "You would be drummed out of the subtle fiction writer's guild for trying to make something like that up."

(H/T to Sebastian.)

7 comments:

BobG said...

I guess Orwell lost something in translation to Spanish...

Odysseus said...

Perhaps this is part of the Spanish green energy policy.

The next step is installing a generator attached to Orwell's corpse.

staghounds said...

Unbellyfeel spellbad. No s.


Report Miniluv.

Tam said...

Heh.

I'd correct it, but then your comment (which made me Ell-Oh-Ell) would be spoilt. So I'll leave it as a monument to my oldthink. :)

Chas S. Clifton said...

Words fail. This *must* go viral.

Sigivald said...

Not feeling it, myself.

I'd go read 1984 again before trying to point out irony here; I don't see any.

(Especially since Orwell's name is on Spanish streets for his service to the Republicans during the Civil War and his Homage to Catalonia, not for his political theorizing.)

1984 had pervasive surveillance ... of mid-level Party functionaries. Not of the Proles [and thus of the general public areas] - because the Proles had no power and thus weren't threats - and not of the Party Elite.

Orwell isn't a cipher for "no cameras!!!" - he was making cutting attacks on Socialist party internal politics and thought-policing.

(I suspect that he might not have been against public-area crime-deterrent surveillance, though I also see no particular reason to believe he'd be much for it either.

It's a stupid waste of money, but it's not making Mr. Orwell spin in his grave.)

Drang said...

I wasn't going to point out that Sigivald overthink much, but I'd hate to let WV: equencow go to waste.
Horses and cattle are interfertile? who knew?