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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 17h

Oh this looks super interesting

Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

No easily shareable link but happy to see this little snippet of London SCW/anti-fascist memory get a little scholarly attention! Always enjoy seeing a Clapton FC jersey in the wild.

Clapton CFC and the International Brigades: An Antifascist Monument on an East London Football Ground
DP González, II Merino
books.google.com - 8 days ago
On Saturdays and Sundays, anyone walking through the East London neighborhood of Forest Gate is likely to hear unusual chants. To the tune of Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 hit,“Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” hundreds of people might be chanting,“When the working day is done, oh, Tons Just Wanna Have Fun, Oh, Tons Just Wanna Have Fun,” before moving on to other modified covers of The Specials, KC & The Sunshine Band, or The Champs, with references to how great it is to be from East London and “Always Antifascist.” The chants come from the Old Spotted Dog Ground, the oldest senior football ground in London, which is home to the Clapton Community Football Club (Clapton CFC). It is a fan-owned club, and when they play, one is not merely watching a local league game, but one is also witnessing the ways in which antifascism can be reframed and the role memory plays in this.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

On sober reflection I'm still amazed that even a quasi-governmental body would come out and specify that they're worried about "stubborn economic malaise, overwhelming global commitments, increasing international isolation, and the growing number and strength of adversaries."

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Not sure it's a great sign when diplomats are asking historians of the 1930s for advice.

This Fellowship offers the opportunity to work with the
Historians Team in the Global Strategy Department of the FCDO. The
Innovation Fellowship award holder will collaborate with colleagues in the
Strategy Directorate and others across the FCDO and foreign policy
community in Whitehall, to develop understanding amongst policymakers on
how the history of the 1930s might help them think better about present-day
challenges. In particular, they will look to develop historical awareness
amongst policy-making colleagues of how the UK state conducted
diplomacy, made policy and formulated strategy in the face of multiple
challenges and crises, including rapid technological change, stubborn
economic malaise, overwhelming global commitments, increasing
international isolation, and the growing number and strength of adversaries.
The Innovation Fellowship award holder will also support the Historians’
wider Applied History work - providing rapid, policy-focused historical
analysis - and use their own networks to help strengthen the Historians
team’s links with external researchers.

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Helen McCarthy @historianhelen.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

The Applied History Fellowship would suit a historian of interwar international relations. And you get to hang out with the FCDO Historians, who are super-lovely people.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Genuinely offensive how much better texts get after iterative drafting, as if I didn't write them perfectly in the first place.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

One of the fun things about French protest culture is that it covers both perspectives on the Anglophone "people should protest harder" and "police should hit protesters harder" debates.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Unrelatedly waiting for a bus across the road from the World Health Organisation headquarters, and am delighted to discover that whoever made the google map marker didn't check the autocorrect

Google map screenshot showing I'm across the road from "Who"

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Well, they did say they were going after Russian assets... bsky.app/profile/thet...

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I feel like a tourist who has been sold an Authentic Bluesky Experience.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Makes a nice change from conducting them against New Zealand.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

What's especially fun about this is that using supply/demand charts to calculate the mutual benefits of trade is like the one thing Economics 101 is definitely going to cover. There is no simpler economics.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

We're extremely disappointed that, having just set fire to our house, our neighbours are absolutely ruining the paint by throwing water on it.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

"A river that is home to about 500 saltwater crocodiles has been given the OK to host Olympic and Paralympic rowing and canoeing events at the 2032 Brisbane Games." Now, in fairness this is one way to eliminate arbitrary barriers between the Olympics and Paralympics... www.bbc.com/sport/olympi...

bbc.com

River that is home to 500 crocodiles chosen to host 2032 Olympic rowing and canoe events

A river that is home to about 500 saltwater crocodiles is given the OK to host Olympic and Paralympic rowing and canoeing events at the 2032 Brisbane Games.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Losing the Daily Mail has historically boded poorly for British fascists, just saying.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The Daily Mail as the UK's foremost anti-fascist outlet was not on my bingo card.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Missing the open goal of "the people who volunteer for lifeboats are good, actually" is positively Starmeresque.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

They had no choice but to go home, having spontaneously all worn the same outfit.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Ah, looking forward to the UK state's earnest zeal in pursuing police intervention and legal punishment of political protesters trying to impede transportation infrastructure.

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Samuël Kruizinga @samuelkruizinga.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

We're hiring a postdoc for #BLOACKADE (ERC Synergy Grant) : the final position we'll be advertising for the project. 4-year, full-time, Modern History, at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, supervised by Prof @elisabeth-piller.bsky.social . 🧵

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Ah, looking forward to the UK media's earnest zeal in pursuing a public interest story regarding a Cambridge academic guilty of unethical behaviour.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Do you hold your steaming hot sausage like a pen or a landline handset

Poster for an artisan sausage studio, featuring some old timey, human-appearing youths who just cannot get enough of some hot sausage

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

When you think about it, it's kind of heartbreaking that Kissinger didn't live to see Trump's war with Iran.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Just saw a guy get off a tram with a crow perched on his shoulder. Too far from the ocean to be an emo pirate so thinking warlock??

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I don't really believe in a kind of judgement-before-afterlife thing, but if you did can you imagine finding out that your soul was about to be weighed alongside Dolly Parton and Tim Curry???

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

So, something I talk-about-but-not-really is that I'm one of the people on this moderation team and have been heavily involved in running the project since 2019. I first got into answering stuff about the Spanish Civil War, and then got more and more fascinated about how it all works...

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

So yeah, helping build a platform that goes against the grain of today's internet in order to prioritise honest dealings with the past is a source of immense pride for me. I find value in the empirical research and teaching I do, but if there's one thing I do that could change the world, it's this.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The people who put this effort in are largely unsung heroes of the contemporary war between history and fascistic or conspiratorial mythology. The internet has started rewarding the misuse of the past because it generates clicks and rage and discourse.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

What matters is how far a question - and your ability to write off the cuff in response - resonates with people. Sometimes it's silly or inane, but a lot of the time it isn't. A lot of the time it's questions we'd never ask ourselves, forcing us to place ideas and evidence in new contexts.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

What AskHistorians has done is build a platform where anyone with substantive knowledge can reach a mass audience. It doesn't matter if anyone knows who you are, because no one knows who anyone is. It doesn't matter what you look like in a YouTube preview, because Reddit is ugly af anyway.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

But we shouldn't cede 'big' public history to either a handful of established names, or the loudest voices in the room. With all due respect (and acknowledgement of exceptions!), scholars rarely win the race towards big personality.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

When we talk about democratising public history, we usually think small rather than big. Big platforms are the preserve of big names and big personalities, and dealing with local histories, local communities, empowering and recording neglected voices - that's an obvious (and worthwhile) way to go.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Since joining the team, I've gotten hands-on experience in organising major events, developing policy, trust and safety issues, media engagement, public communications and that's without getting into the genuinely interesting work of figuring out how to best curate an anonymous Q&A forum each day.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Looking to source a replacement IKEA part and have happened across a gloriously depressive product pitch for a... wardrobe door.

The product description for VIKEDAL, a mirrored wardrobe door:

Tired in the mornings? You can save time and lower the stress by using the mirror door to do your hair and make-up, or to help you get dressed into your favourite clothes and shoes.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Ngl I did a double take when I saw the image preview, it seemed an unlikely pairing for you at first glance.

Screenshot of the above post, showing that the image gets automatically cropped to "torylab".

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

It takes a lot of nerve for far-right scholars who have gleefully advocated for the demolition of the modern university to start beating about disciplinary solidarity.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

This was, in fairness, the original twitter experience.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Like, people are still paying Sufjan Stevens to make identical, ineffably sad soft songs? After all these years??

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Put on a "Best of Indie 2023" playlist and slowly realised that there must have been a significant chunk of the music industry dedicated to replicating my ossified mid-2000s tastes this whole time. This must be what baby boomers feel like all the time?

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Plenty to reflect about re: the Arday affair, but I'm going to repeat this one thing. The playbook the right used here is effective even though it's not especially sophisticated, as it relies on the audience to do the dirty work. I've been calling it "Trojan horse propaganda", let's go with that. 1/

5763072015

Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

We went to so much effort to decide what information about humanity to put on Voyager I, if we have the wherewithal to send a final one they can just stick on a copy of the torment nexus tweet and call it a day.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Warhammer is not an instruction manual.

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

That's a golem-ass name if I ever saw one

A poster for Richard "Clayderman", if that is their real name

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Fraser Raeburn @fraserraeburn.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

The "but he really did plagiarise" crowd smacks of "but why didn't he just follow police instructions" and "but he had a criminal record". Being imperfect while not white - even criminally or unprofessionally so - is not a capital crime.

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