The PR Blog

Were they mere mortals after all?

Some time ago while standing in front of my fridge, door open, I was struck with the, “Old Mother Hubbard” syndrome. Visions sprang to mind of shuffling along, tin mug in hand, just one of many poor wretches in a soup kitchen line-up. Boldly demanding more. In thinking of soup kitchens…

The following is an account of two great contributors to mankind, Florence Nightingale, an English nurse, and Alexis Soyer, a French chef.

Few would argue that Florence Nightingale epitomised Victorian propriety. 

Most have forgotten Alexis Soyer who was characterised more as an artistic and liberal thinker. A bit of a peacock as the saying goes. 

My research, however, indicates by the omissions in their own written accounts that they, the heroes of this story, were perhaps mere mortals after all. The reader will decide.

The Crimean War, which took place from 1853 to 1856, was primarily fought over a combination of religious, territorial, and political issues. On the 25th of October, 1854, 600 men rode into what is now known as the Valley of Death. 

The Battle of Balaclava was a conflict that pitted British, French, and Ottoman forces against the Russian Empire. 

But it seems to me that it was the direct opposite of the successful Charge of the Light Horsemen at Beersheba. 

As we, including me, wallow in disappointment and disgust by the lack of leadership from our political and civil leaders with their weasel-worded utterances, I would like to indulge myself in writing this exposé on one aspect of Australia’s past heritage. 

I hope it will inspire us, despite the despondency we are deriving from our present leaders.

For almost 1,400 years, the Muslims dominated the Holy Land and the surrounding Levant. 

Australians are living in the latter days of the Anglo/American Empire.

For centuries now, world power centres have been moving west – from Mongolia, to Europe, to Britain, to North America, and now Asia beckons.

The Anglo/American Empire today resembles the decadent dying days of Rome. Europe is becoming a green energy wasteland, the British Empire died with Churchill, and America has dodderers and adolescents in charge.

What a mess the world is in. I could not help but cast my mind back nearly 5 years and consider how different the world is today.

It was on the 6th of December 6, 2017 that President Trump recognised Jerusalem, the ancient capital of the Jewish people, as the capital of the State of Israel.

It was a momentous decision and one that the then Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison followed in 2018. 

Yet the current Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced  last year that  the Labor Government was going back on the former Prime Minister's decision to recognise West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Australia is now, like so many western countries, experiencing rallies and protests where people are chanting " From the River to the Sea " as some sort of war cry to support Palestine and encourage the destruction of Israel as a country..... ?

Flysa spent some of the early years of his life managing construction projects in the northwest of Western Australia to assist in the transportation of iron ore. The projects comprised railways, bridges, and wharves. But how did the iron ore get there? To answer that question, we have to go back a few years.

About 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth was formed as a sphere of molten rock from gases emitted by the Sun. Over millions of years, the surface gradually cooled and formed a solid, uneven, crust with constant upthrust from the molten interior (magma). Volcanic emissions from the molten interior, which broke through the crust, released water vapour into the atmosphere, which gradually condensed and fell as rain, covering the lower depressions in the earth’s surface with water by the force of gravity, thus forming the oceans. Cometary impact also contributed water to the oceans. That all occurred about 3.8 billion years ago. All the time the mountains were pushed up by the magma at the rate of a few millimetres a year, which continues to this day.