The PR Blog

There are many ships of the Royal Australian Navy that are dear to the hearts of us older Australians. The Scrap Iron Flotilla that ran the gauntlet ferrying men and materials between Tobruk and Egypt, The Canberra, sunk by friendly fire in the Solomons, the Hobart going down against overwhelming odds in Sunda Strait but none compare with the adulation reserved for HMAS Sydney.

Today marks the anniversary of the sinking of HMAS Sydney 2. Lost with all hands following a heroic mutually destructive battle with the German raider HSK Kormoran on the evening of November 19th 1941. R.I.P.

Since 1901 there have been FIVE fighting ships of the RAN bearing the name HMAS Sydney. 

The second HMAS Sydney started life as the cruiser, HMS Phaeton until purchased by the Australian government in 1934 and re-named in memory of her predecessor. She remained in Australian waters until April 1940 when she left as part of an escort screen for a large Middle East bound convoy.

In military history, there are countless tales of bravery, valour, and unwavering dedication from soldiers who fought on the front lines.

But what about those fearless felines who have prowled the battlefield, armed with their whiskers and lethal claws? These purrsistent warriors have played some truly remarkable roles throughout history, and it's high time we give them the recognition they deserve.

Sometimes I think that we underestimate the role that cats, dogs and other animal and feathered friends play in our lives and in our world.

So sit and enjoy a journey into the history of cats and how they have evolved into being lazy, domineering, pampered  pets from their early incarnations as demi gods and deities. But when you think about it, nothing much has changed really....... they are still demi gods and worshipped deities...... But things were not always as they are.

They did actually earn their keep. 

After the Great Green Reset wiped out civilisation back in the 2020s, the surviving humans on Earth had returned to caves  -  mostly because tents kept blowing away in the renewable-powered storms. And so, in the year 3399, the last thinkers on Earth gathered for the Annual General Meeting of the Great Cavern Roundtable (an actual, literal round table -  thank the ancestors for inventing the wheel).

Many earthdwellers had moved to Mars on the Musk MAGA crafts captained by the legendary High Commander Trumpasaurus and Captain AD Vance.  Mars was now a thriving planet and people ate good food, lived in wondrous things called " houses "  and chatted all day long on a thing called Starlink, devoid of interference. 

Unfortunately, Earth had banned access to the broadcasts and of those that remained, many people had been wiped out by a virus called " Wokeness. " The virus caused functioning brain cells to dissolve into a puddle of swamp slime and procreation was severely limited due to the number of people who didn't know what a woman was so they killed all the babies just in case they were female. 

And so it was that the few remaining living creatures on Earth convened their annual general meeting to work out what should be on the agenda for the next year. 

On the night of 30 October 1938, millions of Americans leaned close to their radios and felt the bottom drop out of their world. Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast -  a fiction performed so convincingly it became a national panic -   proved something unsettling: people don’t fear what they know; they fear what they never imagined.

That moment matters now, more than ever, because we are living through a new kind of broadcast.

Not just from a radio tower called MSM, but from political platforms and activist pulpits insisting society can simply “transition away” from oil and coal  -  painlessly, quickly, without consequence.

It sounds comforting. It sounds noble.

And it is just as fictional as Welles’ Martians. The difference is, this time, when the panic finally hits, no announcer will step forward to say:

“Don’t worry. It isn’t real.”

Read more: Is it Lights Off for the Modern World?