In the December 1975 edition of Harper’s Magazine, Alan Coren — “the funniest writer in Britain”, according to The Sunday Times and never were truer words committed to print – wrote an exquisite parody of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. It was still set in a dystopian future, but the Britain was very much like our own. Then, as now, nothing worked. Big Brother was trying to spy on Winston Smith but the telly was on the blink, the thought police had him confused with another citizen and when he was sent to Room 101 for interrogation, there was a problem with the rats.
“Rats, I believe, are what you, ha-ha-ha, fear most of all. Big brown rats. Big brown pink-eyed rats…”
“NO,” screamed Smith,
