Big Brother Is Watching You

The camera in the foreground of this photo is the one that sweeps across the newsroom to the waiting weather forecaster on the BBC News channel. It's operated by remote control, and runs along a track high above the newsroom floor. On the right of the picture is part of the on-air BBC News studio. Staff working in the newsroom are in shot 24/7, so it's not only Big Brother watching them but millions of viewers as well.

Did you know that George Orwell, who worked for the BBC as a journalist during the war years, based the Ministry of Truth in his novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" partly on the wartime Broadcasting House? He became frustrated over wartime bureaucracy and censorship at the BBC, and left at the end of 1943.

Orwell named the nightmarish Room 101 after a conference room on the first floor of the building where he used to sit through tedious meetings. It was lined with oak panelling, and I remember it being rather stuffy and airless. I spent several days in it as a 25-year-old radio sound trainee attending technical operations lectures. When the original Room 101 in Broadcasting House was due to be demolished in 2003, a plaster cast of it was made by the artist Rachel Whiteread and put on display at the V&A.

I ventured into New BH this afternoon to stretch my legs, and when I noticed the camera and the numerous anonymous workers down in The Pit I couldn't help but think of "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Whatever would Orwell have made of it all?