OK read it. Not impressed. Orwell is a liar because: "Let's move to his first rule 'Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print'? Yet we only need to read as far as the second sentence of his essay to see him talk of the 'collapse' of civilization. That would be a literal collapse would it?"

This is pedantry. All language is metaphorical at some level. 'Vagina' literally means 'sheath'. Should we avoid that one? How about describing an argument as 'crystalline'? I would argue that 'collapse' in that sense is no more metaphorical than crystalline.