Mental prophylaxis

This has nothing to do with H5N1 but a lot to do with maintaining a healthy attitude: George Orwell's diaries are now appearing online, 70 years to the day after he wrote them.

At the moment you can follow him through the late summer of 1938, paying remarkable attention to everything around him in the English countryside. It's a reminder that Orwell was one of the first environmentalists.

I plan to visit the diaries every day, though I know the mood will darken when he begins his pre-war diaries next month. Being inside the mind of this perceptive and decent man should provide some immunity to the toxic sludge we expose ourselves to on the web.