It was the last time, too, when […] the races dominated the radio on Saturday afternoons and everyone had the number of an SP bookie.

A thousand wax tapers burned in honour of the Madonna. Four beautiful children swung the silver censers before her picture, till a cloud of incense arose and floated in broken masses to the fretted roof, and the whole air was heavy with perfume.

...the beginning of the end of Israeli superspy hegemony in spy fiction.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is the best known of Orwell's social commentaries.