Big Brother Michael’s poster eyes are following you around the room

WINSTON SMITH sat in the bar, alone as always, the glass of gin in his hand. The smells were familiar to him, the smells of boiled cabbage and damp.

Even though they were unpleasant, there was something comforting about them, something that reminded him of home.

And on each wall of the bar there was the poster. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about 54, with thinning blond hair, piercing eyes squinting narrowly through gold-rimmed glasses, and that vulpine smile he had known for years. The posters were everywhere - not just in the bar, but on every street corner, on every wall in every room in every public building, indeed in every building where people gathered.