The PR Blog

When I lived in South Korea, the first thing I had my Korean friend write down in Hangul ( written in the Korean Alphabet  ) was " this person is allergic to chilli. " I later found out that he actually wrote " Don't let this woman eat chilli. It makes her lips fat and she will look very ugly and drive your customers away. " 

I always wondered why they looked at me strangely and almost sympathetically when I presented the staff with my note. 

When I found out what he wrote, he said to me " Miss Shaydee, you wrote about how it affected you. They don't care. I made it tell them how it would affect their business. "

Virtually every manifestation of evil involves a desire to dominate and control.

To many people, the world seems to make less and less sense with each passing day. Values we once cherished and that bound civil society together face daily bombardment. Offensive things are routinely said and done today in ways intended to inflame and divide. Freedoms we took for granted—freedoms of thought, speech, press, religion—are under relentless assault as intrusive government and cancel culture gain ground.

“Orwellian” is no longer just an adjective derived from a work of fiction more than seven decades ago; it describes some new development in our lives every day. Words and thoughts, once neutral or perhaps disagreeable but not actionable, are treated now as if they are crimes. History itself is being rewritten to serve political agendas. Petty tyrannies are morphing into bigger tyrannies as governments play an ever more intrusive role in the lives of their citizens. There’s an awful lot of bad behavior going on—and perpetrators getting away with it, too. From lying to looting, it feels like an epidemic.

I just heard that a relative is going to a Steam Punk get together this weekend and am I green with envy or what? 

Redhead asked me what the hang Steampunk was. I tried to explain. Needless to say, I didn't convince her that it was worthy of my enormous excitement...... and no doubt it seems unusual for a woman of my vintage to be so jealous of a pair of young ones heading off to such a gathering but perhaps, in these times of despair, it actually makes sense to want to escape to a world of fantastical inventions and where the only thing that limits you is your imagination. Just think of the early days of Inspector Poirot meeting up with a wild west movie and a large dose of Dr Who to round it off. 

It seems to me that it encompasses all of the good times when people did bold things, had fun, imagined greatness and then were free to follow through... without the constraints of being " offended " or " not allowed. " In short, it was when there was no red tape, green tape or black tape and if you dared, hell you could win. Or lose. 

I was quite taken aback about a year ago when I read that Mr Albanese - Prime Minister of Australia - said he wanted the Aboriginal language to be taught in schools. If " The Voice " gets up, you can be sure it will happen.

But how about we teach English first?

What puzzled me is that there are more Indigenous languages in Australia than there are genders - which is saying something. In Australia, there are more than 250 Indigenous languages including around 800 dialects. So I guess it is going to be fun choosing which one they will teach in the school curriculum... and who is going to be the teacher?

Luckily, those journalists who’ve specialised in climate and net-zero nuttery have a global Big Brother to train them, “tackle disinformation” and supply daily titbits to print and inspire. More than 15,000 environment/climate reporters from 180 countries are subscribed to the Earth Journalism Network, run by a staff of about 30 (a dozen full-time plus project staff). It also boasts thousands of journos accessing EJN on social media.  

EJN is funded by dozens of foundations – including woke billionaire entities such as the Hewletts and Packards and Rockefeller Brothers, along with official sugar-daddies like the European Commission, UN aid agencies and the US, UK and Swedish governments.

Sometimes, justice is neither done nor seen to be done. In fact, it is unjust and plain and simple, really unfair.

We are living in a world where nothing is fun, nothing is fair and nothing is as it seems.

Decades ago, I knew a teacher.  A good man. He was married, two great kids and a lovely wife. He was dedicated to his craft and believed that it was his honour and his duty to educate his students to the best of his ability. If a student passed his classes, they KNEW it was because they deserved it. He didn't hand out participation prizes and he certainly did not reward laziness as some sort of free pass to graduation. 

In short, he was a very fine teacher and educator of young minds.

This man was a highly respected member of the community. He was a volunteer firefighter and an active member of his local Church. He loved a beer down at his local and was a keen backyard cricketer and a fine teller of jokes.

But one day his life changed.