Generation F AI Cover

Here's the AI (Advance Information) cover for Generation F, the forthcoming book by Winston Smith.

It will change a bit between now and publication later in the year, but we like the title typeface, the glowering sky and the perspective effect produced by the convergence of the wall and the road; the idea is to create something which looks slightly reminiscent of the Soviet-era posters which were around at the time Orwell wrote 1984, the book from which Winston (obviously) takes his nom de plume.

Interestingly (or not), while editing the book we needed to work out the cost of housing benefit payments, paid by local authorities out of council tax income, to keep young people in supported housing. In Winston's project, the cost is around £170,000 per annum; there are (or were, in 2006) 10,648 such projects in England and Wales. It should be simple multiplication, but our office 8-digit calculator exploded with the effort and registered an E. You can use your PC, but this online calculator is very useful, too.

As David Cameron sets out his stall in respect of taxation, state spending and the limits of government, Theodore Dalrymple has a piece in the latest edition of City Journal which repays reading. He looks at, among other things, the impact of sudden wealth on the Nauran people, British literacy rates in the pre-state education days (97%, apparently) and the collapse in predictable chaos of Julius Nyerere's utopian plans for socialist Tanzania - not that St Julius noticed (or minded):

The only time I ever saw Nyerere in person was in Dodoma, the dusty town designated to become Tanzania’s new capital.

He was expected to drive by, and by the side of the road sat a praise singer—a woman employed to sing the praises of important people. She was singing songs in praise of Nyerere, of which there were many, with words such as: “Father Nyerere, build and spread socialism throughout the country and eliminate all parasites.” 

The great man drove past in a yellow Mercedes. The praise singer was covered in dust and started to cough.