The PR Blog

I asked the question " What makes good government? " on a forum I belong to and an answer struck me as one of the best. 

" Good people make a good government. So the real question you are asking is "what makes good people?" "

Obviously, this leads to the question that if we have good people, why do we need government at all? Easy. Because we will always have bad people. We just don't want them in Government. Simple really.  

It therefore follows that we need Good people in Government to protect us from Bad people.

Instead, why is it that it seems to be the opposite way around? 

When I ponder this, I must ask myself what makes us actually WANT a government? To pay taxes? To be brow beaten?  Seriously, why do we have a government? I warn you now, you may detect a certain sarcastic tone today. For that, I do not apologise.  

Imagine the joy of discussing life's great mysteries or the simple art of cooking a chicken with someone you've never met, whose face you've never seen, whose voice you've never heard.

This is the essence of online anonymity, a digital echo of the old-school phone calls with characters like my very own " Chicken Man. "

In 1997, my phone rang, and a stranger asked me the most unexpected question:

“Do you know how to cook a roast chicken?”

That was the beginning of my five-hour conversation with the man I’ve come to call the Chicken Man.

Dusty Gulch Dispatch: Whiskers Remembered – A Follicle-Fueled Fightback Against Feather-Brained Folly
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, Special Correspondent

In times of crisis, some towns turn to science. Others turn to faith. Dusty Gulch? We turn to whiskers.

Yes, whiskers. Those humble facial feelers the Good Lord gave cats, rats, and the occasional platypus. Under the right conditions, those bristles become something more  -  follicles as a force of rebellion against the feather-brained.

It is called Whisker Dynamic Propulsion Theory -  WDPT to the initiated, and “that madcap nonsense” to the ducks. But let us not get ahead of ourselves, dear reader.

Last week, many Dusty Gulch citizens mysteriously turned into ducks following Maurice EDuck’s latest decrees.

Between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, more than a hundred thousand British children were sent overseas to countries like Canada, Australia, and other parts of the British Empire as part of what became known as the Home Children programme. This controversial migration scheme, which aimed to provide "better opportunities" for children in poverty, left a lasting imprint on the lives of those involved.

The Home Children programme began in the 1860s as a social experiment aimed at alleviating poverty in the crowded industrial cities of Britain. Many of these children, some as young as three, were either orphans or had been surrendered by impoverished families who could no longer care for them. The programme was supported by philanthropic organisations such as Dr. Thomas Barnardo's Homes and the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society, and was endorsed by the British government.

Other children were told that their parents had died when in fact that was not the case. As they were compulsorily shipped out of Britain, many of the children were deceived into believing their parents were dead, and that a more abundant life awaited them. Some were exploited as cheap agricultural labour, or denied proper shelter and education. It was common for Home Children to run away, sometimes finding a caring family or better working conditions.

The Battle of Britain ended on 15^th September, 1940 but the Blitz continued long after that.  Following the evacuation of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain a wealthy American living in London persuaded the government to form an RAF squadron composed entirely of Americans.

This is their story. 

When war broke out on 3^rd September, 1939 there was no mad rush of support for the causes espoused by Britain or for Poland and other occupied European countries. Americans were very much of a mind to remain out of any European war. There was no universal feeling of kinship towards Britain and there was, in fact, quite a lot of sympathetic support for Hitler.

The second most common language spoken in the USA at the time was German and to cap it all the Neutrality Act prevented any engagement, let alone involvement, by Americans with any belligerent country. That included Britain and France as well as Germany.

Amongst all that however, there was a core of sympathetic support for Britain and an eagerness by those who had learned how to fly to enter the fray. Among the various means of getting around the rigours of the Neutrality Act was to cross the border into Canada and proceed from there.