“His education was complete, and he was leaving newly armed, a philosopher soldier of the revolution, having declared war on the society he saw around him and condemned. In his delight at going to join Pluchart, at going to be Pluchart, a leader that was listened to, he started making speeches to himself rehearsing the phrases as he went. He considered how he might broaden his programme of objectives, for the bourgeois refinement that had taken him out of his own class had now made him hate the bourgeoisie even more, Discomfited by the workers’ reek of poverty, he felt the need to raise them up to glory and set a halo on their heads; he would show how they alone among human beings were great and unimpeachably pure, the sole font of nobility and strength from which humanity at large might draw the means of its own renewal. Already he could see himself addressing the Assembly, sharing in the triumph of the people-if the people did not destroy him first.”
“Dull-eyed he gazed at the wall of books. He hated the whole lot of them. Old and new, highbrow and lowbrow, snooty and chirpy. The mere sight of them brought home to him his own sterility. For here he was supposedly a ‘writer’, and he couldn’t even write. It wasn’t merely a question of not getting published; it was that he produced nothing, or next to nothing. All that tripe cluttering the shelves-well at any rate it existed; it was an achievement of sorts. But it was the snooty ‘cultured’ kind of books that he hated the worst. Books of criticism and belles-lettres. The type that those moneyed young beasts from Cambridge write almost in their sleep-and that Gordon could have written if he had a little more money. Money and culture. In a country like England you can no more be cultured without money than you can join the Cavalry Club.”
George Orwell, “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”, 1936.
“He was using the strike-the terrible poverty, the sense of grievance, sharpened by hunger-with the ardour of a missionary preaching to savages for the greater glory of his religion. He said that the Church was on the side of the poor and that one day it would cause justice to triumph by calling down the wrath of God upon the inequities of the rich. And that day would soon dawn, for the rich had usurped God’s place and were even now governing without the power of God, having wickedly stolen His power. But if the workers seeking fair distribution of the fruits of the earth, then they should begin by placing their faith in the priests of the church just as the humble and meek had gathered around the apostles upon the death of Jesus.”
“As he walked along, he thought of these soldiers, of these men of the people who had been armed against the people. How easy the revolution would have triumphed had the army suddenly came over to their side! All it needed was for the working man or the peasant in his barracks to remember his origins. This was the supreme danger, the doomsday vision which set bourgeois teeth chattering when they thought about the possibility of the troops defecting. Already it was said that whole regiments had become infected with socialism. Was it true?
“A worker shouldn’t think for himself? Ah, but that’s precisely why things were soon going to change, because now the worker had started thinking! In the old man’s day the miner lived down the pit like an animal, like a machine for extracting coal, always underground, his eyes and ears closed to what was going on outside. Which meant that the rich and powerful could suit themselves, buying and selling the miner as they pleased, living off his flesh while he himself didn’t even realize what was going on. But now, deep in the earth, the miner was waking from his slumber and germinating in the soil like a real seed; and one fine day people would see what was growing in the middle of these fields: yes, men, a whole army of men would spring up from the earth, and justice would be restored. Were all citizens not equal since the Revolution? Why should the worker remain the slave of the boss who paid him when both of them now voted?”
“This started everyone off, and each member of the family said their piece, as the fumes from the paraffin lamp mingled with the reek of fried onion and turned the air fouler still. No, certainly, life was hardly a bed of roses. You worked like an animal doing what used to be done by convicts as a punishment, more often than not it killed you, and still you didn’t have meat on the table come dinner-time. All right, so you did get your daily plate of mash, you did eat, but so little, just enough so you could suffer without dying, up to your eyes in debt and chased after as though you’d stolen the bread you ate. Come Sunday you slept from the exhaustion of it all. The only pleasures were getting drunk or giving you wife a baby, and even then, the beer gave you a paunch, and the child wouldn’t give a damn about you when it was older. No, it wasn’t what you’d call a bed of roses.”
The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: AT THE PIANO BAR ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS
Bobby Jr. and I left our State Cabin and headed up to the Piano Bar which is a sumptuously decorated car with as could be expected a lady playing a piano!
The men were in their smoking jackets and the ladies dressed in expensive but demure outfits. Amira thought is best she remain in in Pulman Cabin as you know Madame Fong hated Malay women as her former husband headed into the sunset with a Malay woman. I say former husband as he died in a horrific eating accident. A mushroom omelet he apparently choked to death on but according to Bobby Jr. this reconciliation omelette prepared by Madame Fong was prepared with highly poisonous mushrooms!
Madame Fong was dressed to the nines in yet another vintage designer outfit looking a bit like a Carnaby Street girl from 1962.
She was joking with Sir Nicomshire tittering away like a Howler Monkey, but when he saw me enter the Piano Bar car he said to Madame Fong, “Sorry doll, Let’s talk later as Cuddlecakes is here. The real life of the party.”
And indeed all 50 guests applauded as I entered wearing the Singapore Westie of the Year sash.
Without being asked I hopped up on Sir Nicomshire’s lap without being prompted to do so. This brought a rather sly grin on Madame Fong’s mug as she slithered off to mingle with the other guests
I recognized a few of them from Sir Nicomshire’s Singapore Westie of the Year party I attended. Mostly government types with the Singaporean People’s Action Party (PAP). Nicomshire was a well-known philanthropist and a contributor to the PAP coffers.
There was a Saudi prince, a North Korean diplomat, a couple of Russian oligarchs and a strange looking Caucasian guy looking like a Cambodian terrorist. I smelt an awfully suspicious looking couple and I saw a slight bulge by their shoulders and is that gunpowder I smelt on them?
Everyone had a rollicking time soaking up exotic cocktails except for that suspicious couple with that eau de gunpowder smell. They were drinking Budweiser beer.
What a wonderful assortment of nibbles were offered to the guests. I was not even sure what they were except for the sliders which I happily devoured.
The gentle tinkle of the dinner bell sounded and all of us trundled along to the two dining cars.
“But you didn’t get bread on the table by voting for splendid fellows who then promptly went off and led the life of Riley and spared no more of a thought for the poor than they did for an old pair of boots. No, one way or another it was time to put a stop to things, whether they did it all nice and friendly by agreeing to new laws between them, or else like savages, torching the place and fighting each other down to the last man. It would happen in their children’s time if not their own, because there would have to be another revolution before the century was through. A worker’s revolution this time, a right bust-up that would sort society out from top to bottom and rebuild it on a just and proper basis.”
“This time the three men were in agreement. One after the other they spoke in despairing tones, and theirs was a long tale of woe. The working man wouldn’t be able to survive; the Revolution had only made things worse for him; the bourgeoisie had been living off the fat of the land since 1789, greedily taking everything for themselves and leaving not so much as the scraps off their plates. How could anyone say that the workers had their fair share of the extraordinary increase in wealth and living standards that had taken place over the previous hundred years. People had simply told them they were free and then washed their hands of them. Free? Yes, free to die of starvation.”
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