The language link, of course, is the essay "Politics and the English
Language" (1946), still widely read and cited as a cautionary against
politicians' use of euphemism and obfuscatory language to conceal what
they have done, are doing or propose to do. Never more relevant, in the
age of "special military operations"....

Strange fact about Orwell which came to light in a previous discussion:
apparently there is no extant record of his voice. This despite the fact
that he broadcast many talks on the BBC over a period of years. Perhaps
he died too soon after the advent of the tape recorder.

Ar an chéad lá is fiche de mí Eanair, scríobh Ross Clark:

> [...] Strange fact about Orwell which came to light in a previous
> discussion: apparently there is no extant record of his voice. This despite
> the fact that he broadcast many talks on the BBC over a period of years.
> Perhaps he died too soon after the advent of the tape recorder.

From his biography (boarding school in Sussex, empire-builder family
background) and from the lack of comment on his accent I imagine he spoke a
normal-for-the-time RP.

“Tuberculosis was diagnosed and the request for permission to import
streptomycin to treat Orwell went as far as Aneurin Bevan, then Minister of
Health. David Astor helped with supply and payment and Orwell began his
course of streptomycin on 19 or 20 February 1948.[142] By the end of July
1948 Orwell was able to return to Jura and by December he had finished the
manuscript of Nineteen Eighty-Four. In January 1949, in a very weak
condition, he set off for a sanatorium at Cranham, Gloucestershire, escorted
by Richard Rees. Unluckily for Orwell, streptomycin could not be continued,
as he developed toxic epidermal necrolysis, a rare side effect of
streptomycin”

“Orwell was a heavy smoker, who rolled his own cigarettes from strong shag
tobacco, despite his bronchial condition. His penchant for the rugged life
often took him to cold and damp situations, both in the long term, as in
Catalonia and Jura, and short term, for example, motorcycling in the rain and
suffering a shipwreck.”

He wasn’t going to have had a long life in any event, even if they had cleared
the TB. That’s a lifestyle of COPD, frequent pneumonias, early death.

Speaking of mid-century Englishmen who smoked too much, one of my favourite
worked examples when speaking to medical students about heart disease is Ian
Fleming, who smoked like a chimney and died of a heart attack (likely a STEMI,
the more immediately life-threatening type) at the age of 53. One of the
medical students reacted, when I asked if they knew who wrote the James Bond
books, “but this isn’t on the curriculum for second med” !

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)

Ar an chéad lá is fiche de mí Eanair, scríobh Aidan Kehoe:

> Ar an chéad lá is fiche de mí Eanair, scríobh Ross Clark:
>
> > [...] Strange fact about Orwell which came to light in a previous
> > discussion: apparently there is no extant record of his voice. This
> > despite the fact that he broadcast many talks on the BBC over a period of
> > years. Perhaps he died too soon after the advent of the tape recorder.
>
> From his biography (boarding school in Sussex, empire-builder family
> background) and from the lack of comment on his accent I imagine he spoke a
> normal-for-the-time RP.

And I’m wrong:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/no-g-men-frank-mcnally-on-the-politics-of-english-accents-1.4483443

‘It was the fashion then among Britain's upper classes to sound less posh
than they were, something to which dropping Gs was vital. Not even the
highest echelons of society were immune from the pretence. There was for a
time an English accent known as "Duke of Windsor Cockney". And among the
people accused of having occasional outbreaks of it was a man otherwise
famously devoid of affectation, George Orwell.

Mind you, Orwell’s accent seems to have been considered odd everywhere he
went, including Eton and Oxford. It must have been a product of the
empire-governing classes of which he was briefly a member before resigning to
become a misfit in other walks of life instead.’

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)