The PR Blog

In the 1889-1892 pandemic, the Russian or Asiatic Flu killed more than 1,000,000 people worldwide, and today is thought to have been caused by human coronavirus OC43, so WuFlu is nothing new.

Entire cities throughout Europe shut down, including postal services, banks and trains.

Even the Courts were closed, but unlike today Zoom was not available. Death was rife in London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin. Members of royalty died, including Queen Victoria’s grandson Prince Albert Victor aged 28, who was second in line to the English throne.

The elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss is that crude oil is the foundation of our materialistic society as it is the basis of all products and fuels demanded by the 8 billion on this planet.

As a reality check for those pursuing net-zero emissions, wind and solar do different things than crude oil. Unreliable renewables, like wind turbines and solar panels, only generate occasional electricity but manufacture no products for society.

Crude oil is virtually never used to generate electricity but, when manufactured into petrochemicals, is the basis for virtually all the products that did not exist before the 1800s being used at these infrastructures like transportation, airports, hospitals, medical equipment, appliances, electronics, telecommunications, communications systems, space programs, heating and ventilating, and militaries.

I have decided to make a separate episode of the Queen Mary’s service during WW2. Although it is general knowledge that she served as a troopship the detail and consequences of her service are not widely known. This is due to the extremely high level of security surrounding her service during the war and the fog of years after that when things to do with the war were preferably forgotten or became irrelevant.

Her service during WW2 could only be described as stunning. Winston Churchill stated that she, along with her sister ship Queen Elizabeth, shortened the war by a whole year.

Adolf Hitler was equally aware of her importance to the allied war effort. He posted a reward to the skipper of any U-boat that torpedoed her of 1 million Deutschmarks and the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. No U-boat captain ever came close to winning the prize.

The Queen Mary, the greatest living monument to British engineering excellence ever created. She needs no introduction. She has been on everybody’s lips since the time of her conception in 1929 until the present day. She lies in a state of semi-retirement in her berth at Long Beach, California and still generating income for her owners 90 years later.

Back in the Roaring 20’s Great Britain, France and Germany were vying for the Blue Riband; the record fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean between New York and Southampton. In 1928 the White Star line, owners of the TITANIC, commenced construction of her replacement, an 80,000 ton vessel called OCEANIC. At the same time, its major rival, Cunard, was planning two 75,000 tonners. They had contracted John Brown & Co of Clydebank in Scotland to construct them but their size dictated that they could only be built one at a time.

As we dive into 2024, I wonder how many of us have become Uncle Bob? 

You know, the bloke who people avoided at dinner parties and weddings. The man who was politically incorrect and never did as he was told. Yes, that man. The one that people shunned and were too embarrassed to be with. 

But I loved my Uncle Bob. He fascinated me, amazed me and I thought that he was the most bloody exciting person I had ever met. I have his photo in my wallet today, all these years later. You see, I loved Uncle Bob. 

Imagine you’re in mid-flight on a passenger jet, and the captain flies directly into a Category Five hurricane.

The flight attendant calmly says, “The captain has turned on the ‘Fasten Seat Belt’ sign, as we may be expecting some turbulence.”

Of course, the above situation is absurd, as no passenger jet pilot would ever put his passengers in such danger.

But, tragically, governments sometimes do exactly that.

Sometimes, they do it on a small scale, such as when a small country adopts collectivism, only to discover, decades later, that collectivism doesn’t actually work and, eventually, as Maggie Thatcher said, “You run out of other people’s money.”