The PR Blog

It was many, many years ago, we went horseback riding. In true style, Redhead ( Mum, now aged 92 ) approached this task with true grit. She had never ridden a horse since her childhood. Like most of us in the " club. "  

A friend of mine went horseback riding . Up a beach on a sunny Queensland day. She trotted, galloped and felt the wind in her hair as she and her friends celebrated a birthday of a man now in his 78th year. '

It must have been glorious. A group of friends celebrating the joy of life on an open beach in the sunshine and leaving the cares of the world behind. 

And it took me back to a day, about 50 years ago, when Redhead rode a horse and her bra strap broke. I republish this today for those who never read it last time. Enjoy my tale about the day my 92 year old mother was Bodicea. 

Here we are on the doorstep of the 2024 Olympics. Personally, I find them to be lacking in joy, expectation, or anticipation. For some reason I am more concerned about seeing someone keel over from a stroke or myocarditis - or worse, being attacked by rampaging thugs in the streets of Paris. Or worse...... 

I wonder if the games will be more opening a Pandora's Box or a very large and unpleasant can of worms.

It was 2016 when I fronted up to watch a film called " Eddie the Eagle. "

It was a story inspired by the British Olympic Ski jumper, Eddie Edwards who represented Britain in the 1988 winter Olympics in Canada.

This remarkable young man dared to do something that he knew would not end in a medal. He dared to take a Leap of Faith and give it a go. 

There is only one major social media platform that is relatively free of censorship. That is X, once known as Twitter, and owned by Elon Musk, who has preached free speech for years and sacrificed billions in advertising dollars in order to protect it. If we don’t have that, he says, we lose freedom itself. He also maintains that it is the best path to finding the truth.

The crisis that broke out after the attempt on Donald Trump’s life put the principle in motion. I was posting regular updates and never censored. I’m not aware of anyone who was. We were getting second-by-second updates in real time. The videos were flying along with every conceivable rumor, many false and then corrected, alongside free speech “spaces” in which everyone was sharing their views.

During this time, Facebook and its suite of services fell silent, consistent with the new ethos of all these platforms. The idea is to censor all speech until it is absolutely confirmed by officials and then permit only that which is consistent with the press releases.

This is the habit born of the Covid years, and it stuck. Now all the platforms avoid any news that is fast in motion, except to broadcast precisely what they are supposed to broadcast. Maybe that works in most times when people are not paying attention. Readers do not know what they are missing. The trouble was that during these post-shooting hours when nearly everyone on the planet wanted updates, there were no press releases forthcoming.

Both solar and wind energy have fatal flaws – solar stops when the sun goes down or if a cloud blocks the sun; wind fails if the wind is too strong or too weak. But every day we hear of some fantastic and expensive plan to keep the lights on when these unreliable energy twins stop work. 

The latest thought bubble from Mr Bowen (the Australian Minister for Generating Blackouts) is for him to be able to drain the energy from electric car batteries to back up a failing grid. He suggests that batteries could also power the house or sell energy into the grid. (They are already scheming on how to use smart technology to prevent homeowners from charging their own batteries when flicker power is fading.)

Bowen’s sole sensible comment was “electric cars are batteries on wheels”.