Orwell's "blog:" The political journals begin

For those of you waiting out the pastoral sections of his 1938 journal (posted here in a blog-like page-a-day fashion), he's left the health retreat in Kent and is now on Gibraltar soaking up all the news he can get of the powderkeg that is Franco's Spain.

Excerpt from the 9/8/1938 entry:

Spanish destroyer Jose Luis Diez lying in harbour. A huge shell-hole, probably four or five feet across, in her side, just above water-level, on port side about fifteen to twenty feet behind bow. Flying Spanish Republican flag. The men were at first apparently prevented from going ashore, now allowed at certain hours to naval recreational ground (i.e. not to mix with local population). No attempt being made to mend the ship.

Overheard local English resident: "It’s coming right enough. Hitler’s going to have Czecho-Slovakia all right. If he doesn’t get it now he’ll go on and on till he does. Better let him have it at once. We shall be ready by 1941."