The PR Blog

When I was a lad in Western Australia, the 5th of November used to be an eagerly awaited event. 

That was Guy Fawkes Night, commemorating the apprehension in 1605 of conspirators who plotted to blow up the British Parliament and were hanged and quartered.

Just the sort of thing a young Flysa could get excited about. 

The Catholic conspirators led by Fawkes, placed thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in an undercroft beneath the House of Lords in order to assassinate the Protestant King James 1 during the opening of Parliament, and place his young daughter Elizabeth on the throne as a puppet Queen.

Phar Lap, the legendary Australian racehorse, and President Donald Trump, the American business magnate turned political figure, share a unique legacy of resilience under extraordinary pressure. 

Both captivate people worldwide - one for speed and stamina, the other for defiance and determination.

And in both cases, the burden they carry only amplifies their legend.

Phar Lap defied the odds to become a symbol of hope during Australia’s darkest economic times, achieving legendary status through sheer heart and speed. Trump, rising from business to the U.S. presidency, has become a polarising figure whose boldness challenges institutions and expectations.

Beneath the still waters of Lake Argyle lies the ghost of a homestead — Argyle Downs — once the beating heart of the Durack cattle empire.

This is the story of how the Duracks rose from famine to fortune, and how the land they conquered finally claimed them back.

In the heart of Australia’s wild Kimberley, where the sun scorches the red earth and rivers carve ancient paths through rugged landscapes, one family’s name looms large—Durack. They weren’t born to riches, nor did they inherit vast estates, but through sheer grit, ambition, and an audacious cattle drive across thousands of kilometres, the Duracks carved out an empire. Yet, for all their triumphs, they knew their castles were built on fragile ground, vulnerable to nature's whims and the shifting tides of fortune. This is the epic tale of the Duracks, the cattle kings who ruled the outback—until their grass castles, like so many before, were swept away.

This is not a defence of sin -  it’s a lament for how our culture has traded mercy for spectacle. It asks: can a man be both flawed and honourable? And can we hold both truths at once?

And here is where the teddy bears come in......

I’ve started and restarted this article, pondered how to avoid hurting anyone’s sensitivities, and in the end have decided to accept Admiral Farragut’s advice at the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864: Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead!

I have an intellectual and emotional stake in this matter of the Charge of Beersheba (Be’er-Sheva). My maternal grandfather, 2788 Trooper John Joseph McGrath, was a horse breaker who served in the 2^nd Remount Unit for more than three years under Major A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson in Egypt and Palestine.

My father, QX 17611  S/Sgt James Hammill served in the 2/ 14^th LHR between the wars, then in Tobruk and the Middle East, including Palestine, with the 2/9 Bn. The subject of the Charge of Beersheba was not an infrequent topic at home and in places that I visited.

Forecast: Confused With a Chance of Bureaucracy - Microbursts, bureaucratic panic, and a wallaby with titanium knees - Dusty Gulch shows the city how it’s done.

From our Dusty Gulch Bureau of Unofficial Meteorology
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble - Senior Correspondent & Climate Analyst

When Technology Goes Walkabout

When the Bureau of Meteorology rolled out its brand-new, $4.1 million website on October 22 - promising “modern, user-friendly” weather forecasting - Dusty Gulch residents did what they always do in moments of national confusion: they looked out the window.

The Bureau’s overhaul, part of a whopping $866 million “Robust Modernisation Initiative,” was meant to drag Australians into a sleek digital future. Instead, it left half the country lost in a maze of buttons, colours, and drop-down menus that even a kangaroo with a PhD couldn’t decode.