Living on The Rock
2008-09-07 · Original WordPress address
On this day in 1938, Orwell was in Gibraltar and wrote:
Standard of living apparently not very low, no barefooted adults and few children. Fruit and vegetables cheap, wine and tobacco evidently untaxed or taxed very little (English cigarettes 3/- a hundred, Spanish 10d. a hundred), silk very cheap. No English sugar or matches, all Belgian. Cows’ milk 6d. a pint.
Jeez. In that one paragraph he beat Krugman to the "love of varieties" thing by about 40 years and he beat Broada and Romalis to the "price deflate using the basket of goods actually bought" thing by 70 years.