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alexrose.com
Author of "Washington's Spies" (made into the TV series TURN), "The Lion & The Fox," and "Empires of the Sky." America's 78th Most Famous Historian. Writes the freebie Substack, "Spionage" (Ye Olde Worlde spy stories).
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One of life's sweetest revelations was the discovery that in the late 70s Telly Savalas narrated a series of three touristy documentaries on Britain's most splendid cities (Birmingham, Portsmouth, and Aberdeen), despite never visiting them. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoHV...

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

You know what I love about @scrivenerapp.bsky.social? It's that in the Release Notes they use words like "erstwhile." (They missed a trick, though, by omitting, "we daresay.")

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Just returned from a most enjoyable @socintelhist.bsky.social conference at the Spy Museum. Here I am, in mid-sentence, lecturing a rapt audience eagerly awaiting the next speaker.

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

I think I would definitely watch a spin-off to “Parks and Recreation” centred on the crazy adventures of Jean-Ralphio and his sister (with frequent Henry Winkler cameos as Dad). Also bingeable: “The Life and Loves of Ron Swanson.”

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Recently learnt that the fellow who named Everest pronounced his name as “Eve-Rest,” not “Ever-Est.” Handy bit of pedantry to one-up opponents whenever this particular subject pops up in conversation.

submitted 28 days ago • 1 comment

Don’t care what you urban elites say; Brut aftershave rocks. It’s the kind of thing Buzz Aldrin would splash on when he’s heading out for a walk on the Moon, or Cortes before he burns his ships and conquers the Aztec Empire. Just gets the job *done* and makes you smell like Evel Knieval.

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

Somehow, inexplicably, the cat, despite having an IQ of roughly three, continues to trick me into feeding her twice. But I’m getting wise to your traps and snares, my feline friend.

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

Spammers are getting frighteningly good. I almost fell for this one, it’s so eerily professional.

submitted 50 days ago • 0 comments

I’ve been nurturing, via strategic allotments of seeds, a family of rare black squirrels in the garden; there’s now four or five of them, I think. I like to believe that my name (Hu-Man Who Walks Among Us) is whispered with the piety reserved for the Lord among the Israelites of yore.

submitted 51 days ago • 0 comments

Discovered this morning that Sid Vicious’s favorite ABBA song was “Fernando.” Given the terribleness of that song, seems a pretty punk move.

submitted 55 days ago • 2 comments

I learned today that it’s not “Britannia rules the waves” but “Britannia, rule the waves.” It’s an aspirational exhortation, not a declarative statement of fact. (Also, a handy piece of pedantry to one-up know-it-alls.)

submitted 67 days ago • 1 comment

I had no idea that the person who could out-Bob Fosse Bob Fosse was Bob Fosse. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcrZ...

submitted 72 days ago • 0 comments

Symptoms of robocitis may include temporary confusion.

submitted 73 days ago • 0 comments

When you text me, or anyone, and cryptically say, “Can we talk soon [or similar]?”, please append a note briefly stating the subject about which you’d like to talk and include an executive summary of its relative urgency. Otherwise, it sounds worryingly ominous.

submitted 78 days ago • 0 comments

No kidding around, the theme to “Knots Landing” is super-catchy. Been humming it all day. Seems like a nice place to live.

submitted 83 days ago • 0 comments

I'll tell you who's making bank right now: the owners of Bluesky.com.

submitted 87 days ago • 0 comments

The most terrifying words in the English language: “I’d like to invite you to join my professional network on LinkedIn.”

submitted 88 days ago • 0 comments

I’m reading Hare’s 1883 guidebook to Pompeii, which contains this soundly Whiggish opinion: “The windowless houses . . . look more like ruined cow-sheds or pig-sties than anything else . . . A winter of the nineteenth century would be unendurable in the comfortless toy houses.”

submitted 88 days ago • 0 comments

For the sake of curiosity, I'm trying to trace the first use of the following dialogue: "It's quiet." "Too quiet." I noticed that James Coburn says it in Peckinpah's "Cross of Iron," but surely that can't have been the first time.

submitted 88 days ago • 0 comments