The British Broadcasting Corporation's original Headquarters in Portland Place, is also where Eric Blair, the author writing as George Orwell, took some of his inspiration for his dystopian bureaucratic science fiction novel Nineteen Eighty Four, when he worked there during World War 2.
GPS grid coordinates:
Latitude: (WGS84) N51:31:07 ( 51.518544 )
Longitude: (WGS84) W0:08:38 ( -0.143829 )
George Orwell used to drink in the Newman Arms pub in Newman Passage, leading on to the front entrance aat 23 Rathbone Place, nearby. This is also where the NO2ID Campaign, a cross party civil liberties campaign, against centralised Identity Cards and the rise of the surveillance database state, was planned.
GPS grid coordinates:
Latitude: (WGS84) N51:31:05 ( 51.518112 )
Longitude: (WGS84) W0:08:07 ( -0.135314 )
