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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃

@alanallport.bsky.social

6.2K followers 2.1K following 13K posts

Professor, historian, husband, dad, scouser, gobby. Author of Demobbed (2009), Browned Off & Bloody-Minded (2015), Britain at Bay (2020), Advance Britannia (2025). “Awesome but a bit boring” (RMP). Personal account.

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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 4d

Excerpt from #AdvanceBritannia which is released in the UK on 6 November, preorders appreciated! uk.bookshop.org/p/books/brit...

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Jen Rubin @jenrubin.bsky.social · 13h

ANTIFA:

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Brian Connolly @brianconnolly.bsky.social · 15h

It’s wild that there are people who are like “I’m scared my professor is anti-fascist”

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Jill Blake @biscuitkitten.bsky.social · 1d

“the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa”

Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 1d

The best "defense" of SCOTUS' hypocrisy is that there's an asymmetry between how Democrats and Republicans wield executive power. Broadly—Dems want to give things (health care, asylum, foreign aid, loan relief, civil rights) while Republicans want to take things away. SCOTUS makes the latter easier.

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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 23h

Where do you connect your 14.4k modem

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Patrick Porter @patporter76.bsky.social · 23h

If Oxford is within your range this Tuesday, 14th October, @OxfordCCW is launching my book on realism at All Souls Library, 130pm. An all star panel: Jeanne Morefield, @SeanMolloyIR, Susan Martin and @blagden_david. All welcome! Pets not encouraged.

www.ccw.ox.ac.uk/events/2025/...

How to Survive a Hostile World by Patrick Porter — The Changing Character of War Centre

Tuesday 14 October, 13.30 Old Library, All Souls

www.ccw.ox.ac.uk

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escapedexplorer.bsky.social @escapedexplorer.bsky.social · 1d

WWII "Friend" poster series from the Allied Forces, originally demonstrating the various Allied forces (British, Australian, Chinese, French, Dutch, etc.) and their appearances

It reads:

"This man is your FRIEND

He fights for FREEDOM"

The image is a sepia/black and white toned image of the Portland Frog protester, simply labelled FROG

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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 1d

As someone who regularly chimes in about subjects I have no expertise in, I have no problem with that. I would just find it weird for the BBC to breathlessly broadcast them to the world.

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Robert Reiner @waylon18.bsky.social · 1d

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The best thing about Thatcher is that she was not a Thatcherite. She was more intelligent and pragmatic than her acolytes. Nonetheless her policies did the country enormous harm, apart from the wealthy few. Real incomes have stagnated, public services in freefall

Thatcher was born 100 years ago and her reign feels a lifetime away. Why is her effect on the country still so huge? | Martin Kettle

Today’s politicians need to learn that she is not the answer to contemporary problems, says Guardian columnist Martin Kettle

www.theguardian.com

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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 1d

BREAKING: Person with no expertise in this subject at all has opinions www.bbc.com/news/article...

Kate warns too much screen time damages family life

The Princess of Wales says that smartphones and digital devices are causing an "epidemic of disconnection".

www.bbc.com

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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 1d

Speaking personally, I could definitely look away.

Solomon @solomonmissouri.bsky.social · 1d

can’t comment on Candace because it’s quite obviously a freak show. It’s like driving on the highway and seeing a farmer having sex with a sheep. You don’t want to look, but you can’t look away either. The problems begin when you try to analyze it. It is what it is.

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Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 2d

The Speaker of the House has firm views that Bad Bunny is a terrible pick for singing at the Super Bowl, but hasn't had time to watch the President's speech to our military leadership or form an opinion whether furloughed federal workers should be paid or Illinois' governor should be thrown in jail.

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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 1d

And in terms of the fabled retreat of the state, her 3 terms made … no difference at all in the long run.

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Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 1d

Because in the 1980s the UK's Gini Coefficient of social inequality rose substantially from its post-1945 level, and has never come down again.

Thatcher was born 100 years ago and her reign feels a lifetime away. Why is her effect on the country still so huge? | Martin Kettle

Today’s politicians need to learn that she is not the answer to contemporary problems, says Guardian columnist Martin Kettle

www.theguardian.com

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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 1d

I admit to being a little jaded by the seemingly endless stream of new biographies, none of which have anything original to say.

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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 1d

Snobbish, academics? Say it isn’t so.

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Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 1d

This is the lesson of 2025

Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 1d

he's going to come after you either way, so you might as well act with integrity

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 1d

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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 1d

Does it say anything new?

Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 1d

If it had been framed as “I chose an unusual path, wouldn’t work for most people, worked for me though” it could have been a much more persuasive and useful piece. There’s something a little condescending about it as written.

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Dr Lindsey Fitzharris @drlindseyfitz.bsky.social · 1d

Funeral Invitation, 1688.

Funeral invitations first appeared in the 17th century, and acted as an admission ticket to both the church and the funeral feast. Pallbearers were often assigned a number on the ticket to signify their position in carrying the coffin.

A funeral invitation from April, 1688. It has an ornate black border with various memento mori iconography around it - like skeletons, winged hourglasses, and scythes.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 2d

really can’t say enough about how mike johnson is a sniveling little coward of a man. a bayou-bred pushover with a dignity deficit that would embarrass renfield

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Q: Do you agree that the mayor of Chicago and governor of Illinois should be in prison?

MIKE JOHNSON: Should they be in prison? I'm not the attorney general. I'm not following the day to day on that

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Jon Piccini @jonpiccini.bsky.social · 1d

So I submitted the complete manuscript of my new book to the publisher. Hope it'll be out in the world late next year. It's about why Australia's role as an overseas coloniser was strikingly obvious to all and sundry till the 1970s, then was abruptly (and conveniently) forgotten.

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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 1d

Or if he has no dependents at all. In which case … sincerely, congrats man, you’ve obviously had a fulfilling career that made sense for you. 🫡

But it would be nice for the article to at least acknowledge that this chosen path would be hopelessly unsuitable for most people.

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Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 1d

“Drawing on unpublished first-hand accounts, this is a gripping history of the experiences of the Commandos and their unsung allies in one of the bloodiest battles of the Burma Campaign.”

bookshop.org/p/books/jung...

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