george orwell essay the moon under water

The Moon Under Water

" The Moon Under Water " is a 1946 essay by George Orwell , originally published as the Saturday Essay in the Evening Standard on 9 February 1946, [1] in which he provided a detailed description of his ideal public house , the fictitious "Moon Under Water". It was Orwell's last contribution to the Evening Standard . [2]

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Orwell stipulated ten key points [3] that his perfect pub in the London area should have (his criteria for country pubs being different, but unspecified):

• The architecture and fittings must be uncompromisingly Victorian .
• Games, such as darts , are only played in the public bar "so that in the other bars you can walk about without the worry of flying darts".
• The pub is quiet enough to talk, with the house possessing neither a radio nor a piano.
• The barmaids know the customers by name and take an interest in everyone.
• It sells tobacco and cigarettes, aspirins and stamps, and "is obliging about letting you use the telephone".
• "[...] there is a snack counter where you can get liver-sausage sandwiches, mussels (a speciality of the house), cheese, pickles and [...] large biscuits with caraway seeds [...]."
• "Upstairs, six days a week, you can get a good, solid lunch —for example, a cut off the joint, two vegetables and boiled jam roll—for about three shillings ."
• "[...] a creamy sort of draught stout [...], and it goes better in a pewter pot."
• "They are particular about their drinking vessels at "The Moon Under Water" and never, for example, make the mistake of serving a pint of beer in a handleless glass . Apart from glass and pewter mugs, they have some of those pleasant strawberry-pink china ones. [...] but in my opinion beer tastes better out of china."
• "[...] You go through a narrow passage leading out of the saloon, and find yourself in a fairly large garden [...] Many as are the virtues of the Moon Under Water I think that the garden is its best feature, because it allows whole families to go there instead of Mum having to stay at home and mind the baby while Dad goes out alone."

Orwell admitted that "to be fair", he did know of a few pubs that almost came up to his ideal, including one that had eight of the mentioned qualities.

The essay finishes:

And if anyone knows of a pub that has draught stout, open fires, cheap meals, a garden, motherly barmaids and no radio, I should be glad to hear of it, even though its name were something as prosaic as the Red Lion or the Railway Arms.

The J D Wetherspoon pub chain has used the name The Moon Under Water for thirteen of its outlets. [4]

There is a Moon Under Water pub in St. Petersburg, Florida, US, in Victoria, Canada [5] and in Christchurch, New Zealand. [6]

• George Orwell bibliography

Related Research Articles

Beer is one of the oldest types of alcoholic drinks in the world, and the most widely consumed. It is the third most popular drink overall after potable water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal grains—most commonly malted barley, though wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. During the brewing process, fermentation of the starch sugars in the wort produces ethanol and carbonation in the resulting beer. Most modern beer is brewed with hops, which add bitterness and other flavours and act as a natural preservative and stabilising agent. Other flavouring agents such as gruit, herbs, or fruits may be included or used instead of hops. In commercial brewing, the natural carbonation effect is often removed during processing and replaced with forced carbonation.

A pub is a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term first appeared in the late 17th century, and was used to differentiate private houses from those which were open to the public as alehouses, taverns and inns. Today, there is no strict definition, but CAMRA states a pub has four characteristics:

• is open to the public without membership or residency
• serves draught beer or cider without requiring food be consumed
• has at least one indoor area not laid out for meals
• allows drinks to be bought at a bar

A bar , also known as a saloon , a tavern or tippling house , or sometimes as a pub or club , is a retail business establishment that serves alcoholic beverages, such as beer, wine, liquor, cocktails, and other beverages such as mineral water and soft drinks. Bars often also sell snack foods, such as crisps or peanuts, for consumption on their premises. Some types of bars, such as pubs, may also serve food from a restaurant menu. The term "bar" refers to the countertop where drinks are prepared and served, and by extension to the overall premises.

J D Wetherspoon plc is a pub company operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company was founded in 1979 by Tim Martin and is based in Watford. It operates the sub-brand of Lloyds No.1 bars, and around 50 Wetherspoon hotels. Wetherspoon is known for converting unconventional premises, such as former cinemas and banks, into pubs. The company is publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

The Titanic Brewery is an independent producer of bottle conditioned and cask ales in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England.

St. James's Gate Brewery is a brewery founded in 1759 in Dublin, Ireland, by Arthur Guinness. The company is now a part of Diageo, a company formed from the merger of Guinness and Grand Metropolitan in 1997. The main product of the brewery is Draught Guinness.

Beer has been brewed in England for thousands of years. As a beer brewing country, it is known for top fermented cask beer which finishes maturing in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery and is served with only natural carbonation.

A pint glass is a form of drinkware made to hold either a British imperial pint of 20 imperial fluid ounces (568 ml) or an American pint of 16 US fluid ounces (473 ml). Other definitions also exist, see below. These glasses are typically used to serve beer, and also often for cider.

Samuel Smith Old Brewery , popularly known as Samuel Smith's or Sam Smith's , is an independent brewery and pub owner based in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, England. It is Yorkshire's oldest brewery, founded in 1758, and one of three breweries in the town. Samuel Smith's, which is an unlimited family-owned company, produces a range including bitters, stouts, porters, lagers, and fruit beers, and is known as a highly traditional and somewhat eccentric operator of around 200 pubs due to its continued use of dray horses, bans on music and mobile devices, and low beer prices.

Beer glassware comprise vessels made of glass, designed or commonly used for serving and drinking beer. Styles of glassware vary in accord with national or regional traditions; legal or customary requirements regarding serving measures and fill lines; such practicalities as breakage avoidance in washing, stacking or storage; commercial promotion by breweries; artistic or cultural expression in folk art or as novelty items or usage in drinking games; or to complement, to enhance, or to otherwise affect a particular type of beer's temperature, appearance and aroma, as in the case of its head. Drinking vessels intended for beer are made from a variety of materials other than glass, including pottery, pewter, and wood.

A tankard is a form of drinkware consisting of a large, roughly cylindrical, drinking cup with a single handle. Tankards are usually made of silver or pewter, but can be made of other materials, for example wood, ceramic, or leather. A tankard may have a hinged lid, and tankards featuring glass bottoms are also fairly common. Tankards are shaped and used similarly to beer steins.

The Porterhouse Brewing Company is a brewing company based in Dublin, Ireland. It was founded in 1996 by cousins Oliver Hughes and Liam Lahart who opened Ireland's first craft brew pub in Dublin. The company's brewery is now in Glasnevin, providing beers to its outlets in Dublin, London and New York. It also sells its products via several supermarket chains.

An Australian pub or hotel is a public house or pub for short, in Australia, and is an establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. They may also provide other services, such as entertainment, meals and basic accommodation.

Guinness is an Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in 1759. It is now owned by the British-based multinational alcoholic beverage maker Diageo. It is one of the most successful alcohol brands worldwide, brewed in almost 50 countries, and available in over 120. Sales in 2011 amounted to 850,000,000 liters. In spite of declining consumption since 2001, it is the best-selling alcoholic drink in Ireland where Guinness & Co. Brewery makes almost €2 billion worth of beer annually.

The " London Letters " were a series of fifteen articles written by George Orwell when invasion by Nazi Germany seemed imminent, and published in the American left-wing literary magazine Partisan Review . As well as these "London Letters", PR also published other articles by Orwell.

The Moon Under Water is a pub in Manchester city centre, in the building of the former Deansgate Picture House cinema on Deansgate; it is one of the largest public houses in the United Kingdom. The pub is 8,800 square feet (820 m 2 ) and can hold 1,700 customers.

The Half Moon is a Grade II* listed public house at 10 Half Moon Lane, Herne Hill, London. It is one of only 270 pubs on the Campaign for Real Ale's National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors, was frequented by the poet and writer Dylan Thomas, and was a noteworthy live music venue for nearly 50 years, hosting three gigs by U2 in 1980. In 2015, The Half Moon Public House was listed by Southwark Council as an Asset of Community Value, and is described by Nikolaus Pevsner as, "a cheerful corner pub of 1896".

Michael Edward Ash was a British mathematician and brewer. Ash led a team that invented a nitrogenated dispense system for Guinness stout first released in 1959, which evolved to become the beer now sold globally as Draught Guinness. As the manager in charge of the Easy Serve project, Ash is credited as the inventor of nitrogenated beer. He was Managing Director of Crookes Laboratories (1962–1972) where he was responsible for securing the license for an early anti-depressant in the UK, Prothiaden.

The Commercial is a public house at 210-212 Railton Road, Herne Hill, London. It is cited in 'The CAMRA Regional Inventory for London' as being one of only 133 pubs in Greater London with a pub interior of special historic interest, most notably for its, " Original counters, bar-back, fireplaces and much fielded wall panelling " dating from the 1930s. In July 2016, Lambeth Council designated The Commercial as a locally-listed heritage asset of architectural or historic interest, being described as a, " Two-storey Neo Georgian style inter-war pub with a three-part convex façade which follows the curve of the building line ".

• ↑ "What's your perfect pub?" The Guardian . Retrieved 25 May 2013.
• ↑ Smothered Under Journalism, Collected Works,Volume XVIII p.100
• ↑ "Wetherspoon's website" . Retrieved 14 January 2018 .
• ↑ "Moon Under Water" . www.moonunderwater.ca . Retrieved 23 June 2016 .
• ↑ "Moon Under Water" . Retrieved 11 April 2018 .
• The article at The Orwell Prize
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The Orwell Foundation is delighted to make available a selection of essays, articles, sketches, reviews and scripts written by Orwell.

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Sketches For Burmese Days

• 1. John Flory – My Epitaph
• 2. Extract, Preliminary to Autobiography
• 3. Extract, the Autobiography of John Flory
• 4. An Incident in Rangoon
• 5. Extract, A Rebuke to the Author, John Flory

Essays and articles

• A Day in the Life of a Tramp ( Le Progrès Civique , 1929)
• A Hanging ( The Adelphi , 1931)
• A Nice Cup of Tea ( Evening Standard , 1946)
• Antisemitism in Britain ( Contemporary Jewish Record , 1945)
• Arthur Koestler (written 1944)
• British Cookery (unpublished, 1946)
• Can Socialists be Happy? (as John Freeman, Tribune , 1943)
• Common Lodging Houses ( New Statesman , 3 September 1932)
• Confessions of a Book Reviewer ( Tribune , 1946)
• “For what am I fighting?” ( New Statesman , 4 January 1941)
• Freedom and Happiness – Review of We by Yevgeny Zamyatin ( Tribune , 1946)
• Freedom of the Park ( Tribune , 1945)
• Future of a Ruined Germany ( The Observer , 1945)
• Good Bad Books ( Tribune , 1945)
• In Defence of English Cooking ( Evening Standard , 1945)
• In Front of Your Nose ( Tribune , 1946)
• Just Junk – But Who Could Resist It? ( Evening Standard , 1946)
• My Country Right or Left ( Folios of New Writing , 1940)
• Nonsense Poetry ( Tribune , 1945)
• Notes on Nationalism ( Polemic , October 1945)
• Pleasure Spots ( Tribune , January 1946)
• Poetry and the microphone ( The New Saxon Pamphlet , 1945)
• Politics and the English Language ( Horizon , 1946)
• Politics vs. Literature: An examination of Gulliver’s Travels ( Polemic , 1946)
• Reflections on Gandhi ( Partisan Review , 1949)
• Rudyard Kipling ( Horizon , 1942)
• Second Thoughts on James Burnham ( Polemic , 1946)
• Shooting an Elephant ( New Writing , 1936)
• Some Thoughts on the Common Toad ( Tribune , 1946)
• Spilling the Spanish Beans ( New English Weekly , 29 July and 2 September 1937)
• The Art of Donald McGill ( Horizon , 1941)
• The Moon Under Water ( Evening Standard , 1946)
• The Prevention of Literature ( Polemic , 1946)
• The Proletarian Writer (BBC Home Service and The Listener , 1940)
• The Spike ( Adelphi , 1931)
• The Sporting Spirit ( Tribune , 1945)
• Why I Write ( Gangrel , 1946)
• You and the Atom Bomb ( Tribune , 1945)

Reviews by Orwell

• Anonymous Review of Burmese Interlude by C. V. Warren ( The Listener , 1938)
• Anonymous Review of Trials in Burma by Maurice Collis ( The Listener , 1938)
• Review of The Pub and the People by Mass-Observation ( The Listener , 1943)

Letters and other material

• BBC Archive: George Orwell
• Free will (a one act drama, written 1920)
• George Orwell to Steven Runciman (August 1920)
• George Orwell to Victor Gollancz (9 May 1937)
• George Orwell to Frederic Warburg (22 October 1948, Letters of Note)
• ‘Three parties that mattered’: extract from Homage to Catalonia (1938)
• Voice – a magazine programme , episode 6 (BBC Indian Service, 1942)
• Your Questions Answered: Wigan Pier (BBC Overseas Service)
• The Freedom of the Press: proposed preface to Animal Farm (1945, first published 1972)
• Preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm  (March 1947)

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London, 1946: bombed buildings, bad food and black market spivs. While recent World War victory and Attlee’s new Welfare State gave people cause for optimism, the daily realities were harsher. For many in Britain’s ravaged capital, the most accessible respite from the hungry grind of ordinary life was the common public house. A pub was a place where one could become cloudy from drink, warmed by a coal fire and cheerful with amicable company. Such was its importance in an Englishman’s existence that George Orwell wrote an influential article in the Evening Standard outlining his vision of the perfect pub. The Moon Under Water , which would also be the name of this imagined establishment, outlined ten ideals that Orwell desperately wanted to find together under one roof, preferably in London. These elements, such as the use of china drinking vessels and a limiting of darts to the public bar, would combine to form Orwell’s alcoholic Shangri la.

At the heart of his musings, it was community that Orwell craved. So, The Moon Under Water would be frequented by locals (who occupied the same chairs) rather than random ‘drunks and rowdies’. The barmaids (some of whom may have hair dyed in ‘surprising shades’) would take a personal interest in all their customers, and whole families would gather and unwind in the expansive garden. The consumption of alcohol was really secondary to the human aspect: a social lubricant to foster civility and community. In Orwell’s words, ‘atmosphere’ was The Moon Under Water ’s real allure. It was this element, not specifics like ‘creamy draught stout’ or ‘grained woodwork’, which the writer wisely saw as definitive of the British pub. He did not want ‘boozing-shops’ – he wanted a venue for the beating heart of each local area.

Fast forward nearly seven decades to London, 2015 and the situation is rather different. Some of Orwell’s ten publican commandments seem amusingly outdated and faintly ridiculous. The need for a working phone is completely redundant, for example handleless glasses, of which he was not a fan, have been universally accepted by heavy-drinking Brits as ideal for knocking back pints. (The retro desire for handled glasses seem an affected nostalgia.) On the other hand, a number of Orwell’s wishes have now been comprehensively achieved. Meals served in today’s pubs, from dubious Thai curries to gourmet burgers, would be unimaginable to a post-war Englishman who considered ‘boiled jam pudding’ to be culinary heaven. Beer gardens and draught stout are no longer imagined luxuries but as common a sight as fruit machines and Australian wine. In these ways, examining The Moon Under Water shows how times have changed.

However, there is a far more profound difference between pub culture in 2015 and pub culture in 1946. Dramatically, traditional pubs are disappear- ing at an accelerating rate. Each week, more Red Lions or Railway Arms are quietly boarded up, the regulars having to re-locate for their social meetings – or simply dying off. According to the British Beer and Pub Association, twenty-nine establishments close their doors permanently a week: there are roughly 20,000 fewer than there were three decades ago. In place of these pubs are springing up a record number of trendy bars and cafés diminishing the pub’s cultural significance with every passing month. Bare-bricked hipster joints with retro jukebox playlists and faux-Americana aesthetics sell guacamole as enthusiastically as ale. The Viking-bearded ‘mixologists’ tempt today’s thirsty Orwells away from old-fashioned locals in huge numbers. Neither are pubs the first choice for a night out any more, with clubs and late night venues offering liver-busting drinks deals. With rocketing prices no doubt partly to blame, pub-going is used for lower key social meetings, like the Anglo-Saxon version of continental café culture. It seems that the famous British pub is slipping into the footnotes of history.

Modern commentators lazily decry the decline of the pub in national drinking culture as simply awful, nostalgically shaking their heads at the crumbling of Orwell’s vision. Disciples of Orwell’s writing portray the New York-style bars of the twenty-first century as charmless dens of binge drinking. All vestiges of respectable, old-fashioned beverage consumption can seem a dim memory when viewing some trashed club reveller vomiting over the kerb. Gone are the days when women had the choice to occupy a separate room from male drinkers. Articles on the subject see only doom and gloom, apologising to the late Orwell for the perceived polarisation between old pubs and new bars. But this is a pessimistic simplification of reality.

We must first ask ourselves: what exactly is a traditional British pub? If faced with this question, many would paint a highly specific picture, one of a well-defined archetype stemming from nineteenth-century urban Britain: the angular, brick exterior; a narrow doorway leading to a dark interior; wooden tables, Victorian architecture and imposing furniture. In reality, this was just one style amongst the multitude of inns, taverns and alehouses that evolved over two thousand years on this windswept island. The Romans, as part of their thankless quest to civilise our muddy barbarians’s paradise, established a series of public venues for the consumption of wine and ale. The Anglo-Saxons continued the idea, their drinking dens becoming forums for local meetings. The public house made its way through the Middle Ages and the Early Modern era to enter industrial Britain in the form of the urban pub. So why should this evolution not continue? Why stop in a nineteenth-century purgatory? The single public house style, then, has come to represent all British drinking venues, rather than being seen as one type. This is a misleading mistake that derails any debate with rose-tinted nostalgia – modern bars are as legitimate as an inn or tavern.

Furthermore, let us consider what most pubs are really like, rather than relying on some easy stereotype. Many locals are disgusting hovels with wobbly tables and an undertone of hostility. We’ve all been to those dodgy pubs where the room falls silent on entry – where half a dozen die-hards stare silently at their dusty glasses, alone with their demons and thoughts of better days. Before the smoking ban, these places would be thick with a dense fog of fumes.

Besides, who says change is bad? In reality, many new bars are not cesspits of binge drinking but are actually more respectable than the pubs that they are replacing. This implies a healthy evolution of British drinking houses, with new styles making a necessary replacement of the old. Sticky surfaces, warm beer and dirty toilets are being swapped for clean floors, displays of bourbon and artisanal snacks. I like being able to eat pulled pork and drink mysterious international spirits. Vintage posters of Humphrey Bogart and luminous Coors signs look nicer than peeling wallpaper and grubby carpets. Orwell himself described nineteenth-century architecture as ugly. If new venues can offer what decrepit, intimidating pubs once did, but with a basic level of hygiene, then such complaints are short-sighted: they are just another example of how simplified ideas are distorting reality.

It is useful to use Orwell’s analysis to see how modern bars can fulfil his desires for the perfect pub. As he correctly identified, the key to a true British drinking establishment is not decor or Victorian styling, but a communal atmosphere: regular patrons; jovial staff; and somewhere for friends and relations to gather and unwind. It gives an area its soul and brings communities together. At the same time, a drinking venue should offer calm sanctuary to those who want to escape the trials of life. In the warm safety of a public house, one can gather oneself, pint in hand, without judgement. It is a place which welcomes inebriation, relaxation and conversation not normally allowed in public. What stops a modern bar from offering these things? What Orwell desired can be found in a variety of building types, whether Victorian or twenty-first century. New bars that incorporate traditional elements will meet the needs of pub-goers perfectly: places to sit and relax; a rapport with the regulars; a social environment. It is these venues which are filling the void left by former pubs. And, in the hyper-connected world of today, communities are based far less on proximity but are instead fostered through online links. So, meeting places do not need to be exclusively in the local area. It seems that we get too caught up in the image of a venue rather than focus on what it is actually providing. A friendly bar is thus not too different from what Orwell imagined when he wrote The Moon Under Water .

Such is the public desire for an updated drinking culture that pubs, which are surviving, are the ones that are moving with the times. They thrive precisely because their owners are refusing to sit and fester in a grubby, stale past. They retain the traditional elements that we are fond of, but are adopting aspects not found in their nineteenth-century and twentieth-century predecessors. These modernised establishments share forward-thinking practices with many of the newer bars: approachable staff; pleasant interiors; a wider variety of drinks. The last point is particularly pertinent as drinking habits change: the dominance of beer is being challenged. Indeed, the J D Wetherspoon chain now sells around fifty millions cups of coffee annually. Ironically, the growing wine culture in our country takes the pub back to its original Roman roots. And neither is the appearance of food an entirely modern concept. Inns and country pubs have been feeding hungry travellers for centuries.

It cannot be denied that the decline of the common pub demonstrates a general loosening of local ties in British society. However if a new kind of watering hole offers a friendly, collective place to drink and socialise then why scorn its presence? In fact, such a place would be far more in the national tradition than those anonymous, mock-Victorian pubs in central London which are packed with tourists and a have different set of bar staff each month. Orwell described what the drinking establishments of our capital could become in 1984 thus: ‘From their grimy swing doors … there came forth a smell of urine, sawdust and sour beer.’ If it is these kinds of pubs that we are keeping from our streets, then we should not despair.

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The Moon Under Water: Orwell’s Reimagining of the Pub June 2016

Alongside The Queen Vic and the Rover’s Return, George Orwell’s The Moon Under Water is perhaps the most famous fictional public house in Britain.  In 1946, the Evening Standard published the short essay in which he painted his picture of a perfect London pub .  With ten key qualities , he brought together many familiar and established pub characteristics and added a few of his own invention.  What could have been first mistaken as a glowing review of somewhere he had been and enjoyed, actually only ever existed in his imagination.  Reading over Orwell’s vision of the pub 70 years later, how relevant is it today in the context of declining pub numbers and use?

“GREAT FOOD, WELL KEPT ALE”

Whilst it did not serve dinner, ‘The Moon’ had a ‘good solid lunch’ available upstairs and a well-stocked snack counter (though the ‘liver-sausage sandwiches’ and ‘boiled jam rolls’ are off most menus these days). Over the last 25 years, many pubs have reinvented themselves as ‘gastropubs’, offering a wider food selection and elevating ‘pub grub’ into well-cooked British fayre. The overall quality of the food on offer is, without doubt, continuing to rise across the country’s pubs. Tasty and affordable food is key to many pubs’ reinvention today, and most tend to serve dinner too.

Stout, in Orwell’s time was hard to come by, but it was on tap in his favourite pub, and of the darkest and creamiest variety, just as he liked it. Drinks are served in their correct and intended pots, and the establishment is very ‘particular’ about this. Today, new and exciting drinks are constantly on rotation as Britain enjoys a resurgence of ale with the rise of local craft breweries. With it, the classic dimpled glass ‘handle’ has also seen a return, the drinking vessel traditionally associated with bitter and ale.

WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME

The pub provides the venue for an ‘elaborate social ritual’, as Orwell described in another article he wrote for the Standard . At a time before television, mobiles and social media, the pub of the 1940s offered entertainment, escapism and companionship. Cinema and radio were the ‘passive drug-like pleasures’ opposed to the ‘creative’ and ‘communal’ forms of recreation found in social interactions over a pint of beer. Free of the ‘solitary mechanical amusements’ of the radio, The Moon is a pub geared towards good conversation. Always quiet enough to talk, it offers a unique ‘atmosphere’ generated by the interactions of people from different walks of life who might not otherwise meet.

The bar staff (exclusively middle-aged and female in Orwell’s time) know the regulars by name and where their favourite seats are. The somewhat motherly barmaid ‘takes an interest‘ keeping an eye on the community. The clientele is mostly made of regulars making The Moon a ‘community pub’. As opposed to serving a passing trade of tourists, visitors or workers, ‘locals’ mainly serve people who live or reside nearby.

Today, ‘locals’ account for around 57% of the pubs in the country, according to ‘Pubs and Places’, a report produced in 2012 by the Institute for Public Policy Research. As the report aptly describes, pubs are places where ‘a community can bounce off itself’. 69% of all adults believe that a well-run community pub is as important to community life as a post office, a local store or a community centre.

REINVENTION REQUIRED

With current economic and social pressures challenging pubs of today, creative solutions are now being sought to retain them at the centre of their communities. As with Orwell’s literary creation, the formula of success is often to retain the best elements of a pub, introducing new functions to help them improve, reinvent and prosper. Now 70 years old, some elements of The Moon Under Water that might seem outdated or antiquated but plenty that we still identify with and cherish.

FURTHER READING

The Moon Under Water by George Orwell

Book Review of The Pub and the People by George Orwell

http://www.ippr.org/publications/pubs-and-places-the-social-value-of-community-pubs - Pubs and places: The social value of community pubs (2nd ed, 2012)

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The Moon Under Water – the synopsis of the Ideal Pub

My favourite public-house, the Moon Under Water, is only two minutes from a bus stop, but it is on a side-street, and drunks and rowdies never seem to find their way there, even on Saturday nights. 

In homage to Orwell, J D Wetherspoon’s  has used the name  Moon Under Water  for 15 of its outlets (at the last count):

He once remarked that he models his pubs on a description in a 1946 essay by George Orwell of the imaginary Moon Under Water, which offered cheap beer, good conversation, motherly barmaids and solid architecture.

– Tim Martin, Chairman in an interview with The Guardian

Of course, George Orwell was well known for words which have entered popular culture. Ironically, the role of Newspeak , the language he invented for ‘ Nineteen Eighty-Four’ , was to reduce the meaning of language in order to make it easier for The Party to control the thoughts of the people; e.g. ‘bad’ becomes ‘ungood’, ‘better’ becomes ‘ plusgood’ …..etc

However, let’s leave the topic of Newspeak for another blog – the point here is that for Orwell, the pub was the ultimate expression of freewill, a place where people could come together, exchange ideas, gossip, be individuals.

Even more ironic then that The Moon Under Water never actually existed…..

But now is the time to reveal something which the discerning and disillusioned reader will probably have guessed already. There is no such place as the Moon Under Water. That is to say, there may well be a pub of that name, but I don’t know of it, nor do I know any pub with just that combination of qualities.

 – George Orwell, The Moon Under Water

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Essays and Diversions

Sometimes I wonder.....

16 January 2016

The moon under water.

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