Take it from George Orwell - winning the lottery is largely imaginary

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/25/george-orwell-winning-lottery-imaginary

Version 0 of 1.

There has been much scandal about the increased number of balls in the national lottery. From October, we have to choose from 59 numbers, up from 49, worsening our jackpot chances from 1 in 14 million to 1 in 45 million, but supposedly boosting our chances of getting lower prizes.

Related: It could be you (but probably won't be) as Camelot revamps National Lottery

George Orwell wrote this in his novel 1984: “The Lottery, with its weekly payout of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention … Winston had nothing to do with the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being nonexistent persons.” Of course, lottery prizes in 2015 are not an Orwellian scam ... are they? Our chances are tiny but not zero … aren’t they?

Well, a mathematician described to me the concept of a number that is “vanishingly small”: each individual punter’s lottery chances are so minuscule they are for all practical purposes nothing, like being struck by lightning. And while the worse off might develop a damaging lottery habit, for the prosperous middle classes, putting a tenner or 20 quid on the lottery for a laugh is a vanishingly small bet. Once again, the national lottery proves that George Orwell’s vision is alive and well.

Dog days for Johnny Depp

We are living through a diplomatic crisis. Actor Amber Heard has just icily announced that she and her husband, Johnny Depp, are boycotting Australia. This is because Depp was told by the Australian authorities in May that they might destroy his Yorkshire terriers Pistol and Boo when he brought them into the country illegally.

They finally got out unscathed, but Heard now furiously blames Australia’s agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce for making political capital from their dog-loving agony, and has announced she and Depp would “avoid the land down under from now on”.

That’s a bit tame compared with Frank Sinatra’s Australian standoff in 1974. On stage in Melbourne he called that nation’s female journalists “buck-and-a-half hookers”. His refusal to apologise resulted in patriotic fury and a refuelling ban on his private jet by airport unions. Sinatra was stranded in his hotel, an indefinite house arrest that only ended after future prime minister Bob Hawke came to his suite to broker a peace agreement. Let’s see Johnny, Amber, Pistol and Boo come to Australia and denounce Joyce from the stage of the Melbourne Festival Hall.

Orson’s white Othello

This is Orson Welles’s centenary year, and his body of work is now being picked over with documentaries, re-releases and reassessments. But on one part of his CV, silence reigns.

Related: Should white actors be able to play Othello? Perhaps, but don’t black up

I was reminded of this when Steven Berkoff sounded off on the subject of an alleged political correctness which prevents white actors playing Othello. He mentioned Laurence Olivier in blackface as the Moor: a performance habitually treated with warily respectful embarrassment. But Olivier was not cinema’s only white Othello.

Welles took the role himself on screen, as producer-director-star in a 1952 movie that was a resounding critical success: he shared the top prize at the Cannes film festival with it and undoubtedly considered his Othello a serious career achievement. Now it’s as if it never happened. No digital restorations, no DVD reissues and at this year’s Cannes, despite reverent screenings of Citizen Kane, The Third Man and The Lady from Shanghai, there was zero mention of Othello – which the festival itself had garlanded.

Well, despite the discomfort of watching any white actor in blackface, it must be said it’s a stylish and exciting film of its time. Welles is better than Olivier: more relaxed, more physical. Welles’s heartfelt Othello should be put in its historical context – not just forgotten.