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Alexander Rose

@alexrose.com
87 followers 40 following 71 posts

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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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 01/04/2025
Advice to Authors: Whenever I’m down I like to head over to Amazon to read all my one-star reviews. The exemplary cavalcade of stupidity never fails to entertain.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 21/03/2025
Been busy for a bit finishing the new book ("Phantom Fleet"--out May 20), but here's a new post about historical intelligence from my Spionage Substack-- open.substack.com/pub/alexande...
open.substack.com
A New Golden Age: The Secret Letters of Mary Queen of Scots
AI is aiding codebreaking, but humans still matter more
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 15/02/2025
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...
youtube.com
Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham
YouTube video by seacaptainjoe
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 14/02/2025
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.")
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 09/02/2025
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.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 04/02/2025
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.”
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 31/01/2025
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.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 29/01/2025
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.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 25/01/2025
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.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 09/01/2025
Spammers are getting frighteningly good. I almost fell for this one, it’s so eerily professional.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 08/01/2025
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.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 04/01/2025
Discovered this morning that Sid Vicious’s favorite ABBA song was “Fernando.” Given the terribleness of that song, seems a pretty punk move.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 23/12/2024
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.)
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 18/12/2024
I had no idea that the person who could out-Bob Fosse Bob Fosse was Bob Fosse. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcrZ...
youtube.com
Bob Fosse dance numbers - " The Rich Man's Frug "
YouTube video by Freds Channel One
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 17/12/2024
Symptoms of robocitis may include temporary confusion.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 12/12/2024
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.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 07/12/2024
No kidding around, the theme to “Knots Landing” is super-catchy. Been humming it all day. Seems like a nice place to live.
youtu.be
Knots Landing Opening Season 7
YouTube video by Foxokles
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 03/12/2024
I'll tell you who's making bank right now: the owners of Bluesky.com.
bluesky.com
Blue Sky | 2025 Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Planners
The Blue Sky planner is the solution to your planning needs. Select from our assortment of 2025 daily, weekly, and monthly planners for the new year!
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 02/12/2024
The most terrifying words in the English language: “I’d like to invite you to join my professional network on LinkedIn.”
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 02/12/2024
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.”
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 02/12/2024
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.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 23/11/2024
I believe I have found the Least Informative Table of Contents of all time.
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Alexander Rose @alexrose.com · 23/11/2024
So, anyway, here's the cover of my new book coming out in May. We spent an exciting three weeks debating the subtitle: "and" or an em-dash, "World War II's" or "of World War II," that kind of thing.
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