The PR Blog

So said poet John Masefield  By far the most tantalising problem confronting mariners for centuries was how to calculate Longtitude. Today we take latitude and longtitude for granted. We all know what they are but by far, of all the problems that have confronted mankind waiting to be solved by men of science, Longtitude was the most insoluble ever.

It took over 2,000 years for a workable solution to be developed and in the intervening years it was the cause of huge and consistent loss of life at sea.

It is over 250 years since Captain Cook's discovery of the east coast of Australia and it's worth asking ... what was Cook doing here?

He certainly wasn't looking for Australia (or New Holland as it was then known) as Europeans had known it existed since the 1500's. 

Like many other Europeans before him, Cook was searching for the fabled land of Terra Australis.

Among many surprising developments during this pandemic, the most stunning has been the questioning of naturally acquired immunity after a person has had the Covid disease. 

We have understood natural immunity since at least the Athenian Plague in 430 BC. Here is Thucydides:

‘Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what it was from experience and had no fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked twice—never at least fatally.’ – Thucydides

I have never had a tattoo. Nor am I likely to. I hate pain and am rather partial to my skin colour without feeling the need to change its colour or use it as a canvas for artistic expression.

It seems somehow foreign to me. I am rather appreciative of myself and what I look like and, though I may not be as I wish I appeared to others, I am what I am as Popeye used to say.

Last night, I went down memory lane and stumbled on a long forgotten holiday when I ate scones and home made apricot jam and drank freshly brewed coffee in a stone cafe in Central Otago.

It was a typical holiday. Redhead and I headed off for a 5 day jaunt around a small region of the South Island of New Zealand.

To my younger readers: There was a time when people had things called " holidays. " They were when you could go where ever you wanted and travel and explore new and interesting places. We didn't have facemasks back then. We didn't have vaccine passports and all citizens could travel and mingle and meet and eat and greet. It was known as ": fun " and the amazing thing was that, in those days, it was none of the government's business what we did and who we did it with. 

I wake up every morning and, instead of feeling a sense of hope and expectation, I feel a sense of dread. I turn on my computer and catch the overnight news and see nothing but covid, vaccine, mandate, restriction and fear. All the buzz words in the current woke vocabulary. 

How I miss the days when I used to wake up and think about going to the bakery to buy some doughnuts and head down to Redhead's place and dine in the delights of a creamy strawberry jam filled pastry treat that would give us both a few moments of pleasure on the lips and a lifetime on the hips. As the saying goes.