Down and out in Paris and London part one

I was delighted to come across a BBC radio production of George Orwell’s Animal Farm last week and quickly discovered that the programme is part of a new series The Real Gorge Orwell. He was Eric Blair in fact and I will write more later about him, his wife who came from South Shields, Animal Farm, Homage to Catalonia, part one which is being repeated today with the second part on Sunday afternoon, a discussion of his short story Politics and Language and Burma, a biographical play. 1984 is to close the season plus other programmes and I have found a site where all his works are available to read.

It is fitting that the BBC has chosen Down and Out in Paris and London as  his work to abridge in ten episodes for the book at bedtime this week and next, given that more people have become down and out or become greater strugglers wage slaves in the UK during the past two years because of the policy of the coalition just as the situation in the UK and the USA in the 1920’s when on his return from a colonial policeman in Burma he decided to explore life on the streets and the poverty of being a wage slave to survive first in London and then in Paris while reporting as a journalist and wanting to become a professional writer.

In the Guardian on Thursday 24th January 2012, the new George Orwell day, Stewart Jeffries asks what would Orwell make of the state affairs in 2013? What  would he be writing about and on what would his reputation be founded? His article disappoints although I agree  with the conclusion that he would certainly have written a 1984 to which I would have added Animal Farm given his views the Russians and the Germans through Communism and  Fascism created totalitarian societies and how much greater knowledge of this reality of political speak he would have gained had he lived after 1950 when he died at the age of 46.

 Anthony Powell The right wing writer whose books I possess and admire ( and want to reread again) argued in his journals that he anticipated that Orwell as he aged would have become right wing, anti CND, in favour of the Falklands War, and against the miners strikes to which I must say perhaps in terms of the specifics,  because his  writings always suggested the individualist, the liberal democratic socialist at heart, and a man who liked  good order but hated injustice and waste. Whether he would have earned a living writing about food, another suggestion, is more  questionable although he would  have campaign about food waste and its misrepresentation  for commercial reasons. Would he approve of reality TV programmes? For this piece I will review the first week of  Being down ( but I suggest not out) in Paris, listening to the radio broadcasts while I reread my copy of the book purchased three shillings and sixpence in in 1964 while I was the University of Birmingham, Penguin books edition  reprinted in 1963.

I was disappointed with the first abridgement on Monday evening January 29th 2013, because of the omission of the whole of the second chapter. In 1927 Orwell undertook the experience of being a tramp on the streets of London and experience which other journalists and social commentators have undergone since and then he went to Paris in 1928 to  have the same experience again and the book begins with surviving on six francs a day in a bug ridden lodging house.  In fairness to the BBC the second chapter is not essential to make the point  of what it is like to survive just on bread while seeing  the piles of food in shops, the food left on plates in  restaurants or dumped in trash cans.  However part of the purpose of his writing is not just to describe his experience but report on the condition and behaviour of others and in this respect the tale of Charlie is relevant and could have been summarised in a few words saying Charlie boasted of how he stole 1000 francs from his brother and the blew the lot on raping a girl kept as a slave by an old hag in a cellar.

The episode highlights one aspect of being poor without expectation of a permanent change in circumstances, the tendency to blow what ever comes ones way without regard to  tomorrow, in this instance 1000 francs on a brief sexual encounter and while Orwell is surviving on six. It is the poor who tend to gamble and smoke more on a regular basis often at the expense of food, shelter and new clothes; and thirdly that sexual slavery is nothing new. The omission smacks of censorship although it may be typical of the Book at Bedtime abridgements although I also mention in the context that the original Animal Farm film now available as a U certificate was graded X for over 18 year olds only when first released to theatres.

It is an abridgement series but in this instance missing out on some fo the characters not only reduces the colour of the piece but also reveals that it is no accident why many of  the characters are poor,  the inadequate, or immoral beings, prone to prone to petty criminality and in some instance violence and therefore should be no surprise that they are where they are. What percentage  continues to be a matter for debate, a significant minority from my experience but something which does not affect any analysis and sense of injustice at the extremes between the poor and the wealthy.

The edited radio programme does communicate the reality of being down and out with the author ending the third chapter explaining the consolation in poverty, that is the feeling of relief, almost of pleasure that at last you have reached the lowest you can get of being genuinely down and out.” You have talked  so often of going to the dogs- and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety.”

The second radio abbreviation covered the next four chapters to almost the end of seven(page 39) and  concerned his relationship with a Russian waiter called Boris who worked at a hotel and boasted of earning  100 francs a day in tips and hoped to save up for his own restaurant, something which all waiters dreamed of doing. Boris said he could get Blair, for Eric Blair is the actual birth name of the writer, a job if he wanted one. Then as the teaching English job ended and he was down to his last francs he went in search of the Russian, Boris, only to find that the man was in a worse position than himself living in a flea and bug invested slum, the room of someone who owed him  money, and where he had been sleeping rough under bridges have lost his job after an accident and breaking his back and still recovering he  was described as lame. He had hopes however about a Russian Restaurant that is opening  the following week but when they visit it is still being  created.

We learn a lot about Boris during  the  four chapters, of a wealthy family shot in the revolution and himself a Riffleman, a  Captain, his father had been a Colonel.  He had been with many women, to whom he writes to appeal for funds none of whom reply except who owed him  money but the letter was an excuse for giving nothing to him. He also had a love of chess as many Russians do,  and he was prejudiced against Jews, something which the BBC abridged out and which in fairness many Russians had at the time and still do.

We  also learn about  the pawn broking system in which you take in goods and receive a number and when the clerk has assessed he will call your number and make you an offer so that all  waiting will hear how  little or  how you   will get, and indeed if you are not offered anything. If you contest the offer, it may be withdrawn or you are offered less but if you go after lunch when the clerks have  eaten you are likely to get a better offer than in the morning when they have not.
It is also evident that if you want a job as a waiter you have to know the right person to bribe and Orwell describes how they bought a drink at the right place and waited for the permitted two hours without being introduced to someone calling for an employee because they had not realised  it was necessary to give the barman 20 francs. Their problem was that the Russian now with a limp was almost unemployable and of course Orwell had no experience and would  only get a job washing up in a kitchen for example on the say so of the Russian who had the experience. He manages to survive for one month when he receives 200 francs for some published work and then expecting only 5 or 10 francs for their winter coast they are given seventy from the pawn broker, probably a mistake, but they then  buy lots of food and drink, forge themselves and get drunk which seems to me the standards for those in this predicament.

The next part of the book better covered in the third abridgement describes what it is like working in a  hotel kitchen as a general dogsbody a plongeur. Boris gets a job as a waiter and smuggles out food over the first three days fo his employment until he gets Orwell the job. Before then in  the book there is the story of the Russian Duke who eat at the hotels and restaurants where he knew Russian officers were working as waiters and then borrowed 300 francs to pay for the food and  to survive which he never paid back or was expected as he was a Duke.

They then fall to a confidence trickster who pretends to run  a communist underground group above a laundry and demands 20 francs from the two as a sign of good faith promising Orwell 150 for articles about British politics and the life under the capitalist system. He promises to send a formal request within a couple fo day after they pay five francs of their remaining money and after a week when they go back there is no trace of the man who disappeared owing rent. However this is nothing like the new Tory led coalition approval for TV advising for loans to the poor at interest rates of over  1000% a year. The bastards including one firm  part of sponsoring Newcastle United.

Orwell is taken on because he speaks English and can help staff as most of the guests are Americans,  with his job to keep clean and ready the private restaurant for senior staff. He is offered a months work, the usual practice but at first says no because of the commitment to work in the new restaurant of the Russian which is due to open in two weeks and where they have both been offered better paid jobs. However when he tells Boris what he has done he is sent immediately back to accept the offer. If the new job comes and is better paid they can leave as there will be no shortage of others waiting to take their places. The way is to ask to be paid on a daily basis although one has to keep money on your person as anything left in outer clothing is stolen and everyone is on the fiddle regarding the food and the drink

He works at one of the top hotels in Paris and his description of how the hotel is run provides an important insight into what was the situation and may well continue to be in  most parts of the world  including some  of the greatest cities where tourist flock and where Orwell questions the value to humanity of their existence. The guests paid extraordinary prices then as now but then were cheated at every opportunity bringing to mind the Innkeeper in Les Misérables but then of course they usually have the funds to so indulge as was brought out  in the BBC TV series on one famous London Hotel series.

There is also a class as well as wages system among the 100 odd employees hired to serve the 200 odd customers. The top hotel employees have their own dining room the Maitre d’ Hotel has his own table with silver service and staff attending. The cooks have moustaches  to show their superiority over the waiters who earn more through tips than those on fixed wages, while the waiters insist on junior staff also being clean shaven as a show of their power. He paints in some colour observing that the older char women with still painted faces are usually former prostitutes. Everyone steals food and from each other with the cellar man selling the rest of the measures  set aside for a few sous if he trusts you.

However he has little sympathy for the guests who eat food with ingredients used in such a way to bring profit, drinks of short measure,  bed linen not properly laundered because of the turn arounds. The emphasis is on the appearance and the presentation, the smiles of service without sincerity or care.

Understandably  Orwell concentrates on the role and life of plongeur or dish washer. They work in filthy condition with no regard for cleanliness as waiters clean the sweat from their faces using the disgusting washing up water from the soiled utensils. The description reminds of the Arnold Wesker literal kitchen sink drama The Kitchen which I saw in theatre, listened to the radio play and have the text part of trio of his works.

He describes the going to work and the coming home at night among the other works, the fights and the swearing, except on Saturday night when they congregate as a small  bistro near the hotel  when the work is done around 11 pm and get drunk returning to their beds between one and two and to sleep through before the cycle begins again. Every Saturday a communist believer by day gets drunk and rises to make a speech, word for word the same, too drunk to notes that he is regarded as a comic turn along with those who dance or sing. He also praises the importance of sleep, describing awakened by a murder  by three men seen running off by hitting a man dead with a lead pipe that after the street checked that the man was dead and nothing could be done for him, they left him there and  immediately back to bed and too sleep,

Whereas the waiters and other senior staff could with some optimism plan to better themselves and to marry, the plongeur had no prospects given the hours of working sixty to one hundred every week there was no time to study to importance job prospects and there was only  sufficient money to get drunk once a week. But you had three meals a day, the rent was paid and here was pride in doing the job although he questions the necessity for the role and why it was done rather than people revolt and demand a better life. He argues that the rich even if they care do not involved themselves with the lives of the poor,  Cameron is presently accused of not having visited one of the soup kitchens that have arisen because of the ongoing levels of unemployment and lowering of wages and benefits in real terms.

Orwell argues that if you put the poor in good clothes under a good roof and they are no different from the rich and vice versa. This is only a partial  truth as it is important to separate those who have become addicted to a substance or have emotional  or psychological problems, or become recidivists from those unable because of disability or lack of jobs or because of the nature of work and its pay.

Thus Orwell has described his experience having nothing and  then as a wage slave. However his experience in Paris continues when influenced by Boris they make the mistake of leaving the hotel when called by the Russian restaurant owner that he is ready to open, but this is for next week.